The city that became the face of Philippine flooding is, this time, the one that surprised everyone. Marikina River hit the second alarm on Sunday and again on Monday, yet the city largely stayed dry through the days of Habagat rain that left 16 people dead across Luzon and forced tens of thousands from their homes. We tracked the worst-hit areas in Luzon as the death toll climbed, and Marikina barely made the list. The reason is not pure luck, and that is exactly where the controversy starts.
What happened in Marikina
The Marikina River crossed 15 meters, triggering the first alarm on Saturday, August 8, and climbed past 16 meters, the second alarm, on Sunday. In the floods of 2009 and 2020, that level meant chest-deep water in riverside barangays. This time, the river held at the second alarm without reaching the third, and the city’s streets drained fast enough that no mass rescue operation was needed.
City crews deployed bigger booster pumps in Malanday and Tumana, the low-lying barangays that flood first, and evacuation centers and rescue boats were readied ahead of the rain. Mayor Marcelino Teodoro’s office credited preparation and the earlier clearing of waterways, the same combination the city has preached since Ondoy.
The two pumps that did not run
Here is the wrinkle. Two DPWH pumping stations in Marikina, in Tumana and Iwahig, did not operate during the flooding, and the city itself has blamed a faulty station for the water that did accumulate in the two riverside barangays. Marikina 2nd District Rep. Miro Quimbo is demanding answers, calling for sanctions and a suspension of the contractor and operator of the non-working stations. It is the same kind of infrastructure failure we flagged in our week-ahead Habagat forecast: the rain was predictable, the equipment was not.
The controversy is not new. Flood control projects in the Pasig-Marikina basin were at the center of a kickbacks probe that led to charges against Curlee Discaya and others over anomalous projects, with President Marcos’ cousin Martin Romualdez among those named in 2025, and Rappler’s field visit to Marikina flood control projects found completed works that were already crumbling. DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon has since hinted at more “big fish” in the expanding probe.
Why Marikina stayed dry matters
The near-miss is a live test of whether the billions spent on flood control actually work. The Pasig-Marikina River Channel Improvement Project, a Japan-assisted dredging and channel-widening program that has run for decades, is the main reason the river can carry more water than it did in 2009. The river’s second-alarm peak on August 9 was handled, where the same volume once meant catastrophe.
But the pump failures show the system’s weak link. Quimbo’s framing, echoed by residents, is that the water that reached Tumana and Malanday was water that should have been pumped out, and that a contractor paid to maintain the stations had left them idle at the worst possible time. “More than negligence,” he called it.
The bigger fight over flood control funding
The argument now shifts to the 2027 national budget. House leaders are pushing to keep flood control funding even as the kickbacks probe makes every peso politically radioactive. Deputy Speaker Janette Garin defended the spending, saying flood control projects have been “demonized” but remain necessary, while acknowledging that substandard projects have shaken public confidence.
Marikina’s dry streets this week buy the program credibility. But the idled pumps remind everyone that a flood control system is only as good as its least reliable part, and that part, for now, is under investigation.
This article was written from wire reports and official statements as of August 11, 2026. Figures on deaths and affected families are from the Office of Civil Defense, DSWD, and PAGASA advisories cited above.
