In the last six weeks, Unang Hirit's Issue ng Bayan segment mounted live, remote broadcasts in three separate locations in Bulacan to tackle the issue on anomalous flood control projects. This is part of our objective to help viewers make sense of the raging issues of the day —more notably, to put a face to these issues and to give voice to those who are most affected.

First, we went to Barangay Frances in Calumpit, where President Bongbong Marcos himself visited a supposedly completed project, but saw a "ghost" that he said got him

"very angry"

Next, we visited Barangay Malis in Guiguinto, where we talked to Norlyn Responso, the woman who went viral for the raw and profound rage she so eloquently expressed in a Reporter's Notebook episode on flood control projects. We also found a "ghost" just very near her flooded home.

And then there was Hagonoy, a town slowly sinking every year due to land subsidence, its situation made worse by poorly planned, if not non-existent (again, ghosts) flood control projects that were doomed to fail from the beginning.

Barangay Frances, Calumpit

Just two weeks before this episode aired President Marcos visited Barangay Frances in Calumpit to inspect a segment of a P77-million flood mitigation structure. A resident supposedly wrote the President, describing a damaged dike in their community, and asked that it be inspected because of what he suspected was substandard construction. The President confirmed the suspicion, and as he would witness in succeeding visits in different areas, it was just the first of many that will be exposed as either substandard, non-existent or unfulfilled contractual obligations. Ghost projects, as we call them now.

Before going on air that day I saw portions of the retaining w