A month ago, I wrote an article on widespread protests in the Philippines concerning government corruption related to flood defenses. According to a report in The Guardian, Filipino citizens are paying the price for inadequate flood defense. An example of this is a woman who was a health worker in the province of Bulacan in the north of the country who, while trying to get to work, grabbed hold of a metal pole and was electrocuted to death, because the pole was connected to a live wire and was submerged in flood waters. Despite the Filipino government spending upwards of £7 billion on flood defense projects, 421 projects have been identified as non-existent, meaning they were reported as completed, but no work was actually done. According to a report in the Inquirer (the leading newspaper in the Philippines), the majority of Filipinos feel that corruption is widespread and endemic. This is a sad state of affairs that I don’t see changing soon, particularly given the Marcos family history.