In a country battered by typhoons with the regularity of a metronome, the Philippines managed to spend billions of pesos on flood control infrastructure that either crumbled on contact with water or, more impressively, never existed at all. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — son of a man who practically invented the genre — has announced seven suspects in connection with corruption surrounding flood control projects in Oriental Mindoro province, including a river dike worth 289 million pesos ($4.8 million) awarded to Sunwest Corp., a firm allegedly owned by the family of a government official named Co.

The scandal has proven awkward for a president whose own family name is synonymous with kleptocracy, yet who has positioned himself as a corruption fighter. Thousands of Filipinos, many of whom wade through floodwaters annually because functional drainage is apparently a luxury, gathered in Manila for a three-day rally demanding accountability. They carried signs. The floodwaters did not.

Seven suspects have been identified. The dikes remain theoretical. The pesos are definitively gone. Marcos Jr. assured the public that justice would be served, which is something Philippine presidents have said with remarkable consistency since approximately 1965.