evidoria

← Back to browse

Good practice Imported

Project DIME — the Philippines' Satellite-and-AI Tracker Born From a Flood-Control Corruption Scandal

Philippines · Manila · See the Philippines profile · See the Manila profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 46% 60/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

The Philippines' Department of Budget and Management uses satellite imagery, drones and geotagging in Project DIME to let citizens track flood-control and infrastructure projects — a direct response to a scandal involving ghost and inflated public works.

72.3 million PHP
Value of fraudulent flood-control project (Bulacan case)
~1 billion PHP/day
Estimated national flood-control spending
~300 billion PHP/year
Estimated annual flood damage (Philippines)
~50 billion PHP/year
Estimated average annual flood losses (Philippines)
Project DIME — the Philippines' Satellite-and-AI Tracker Born From a Flood-Control Corruption Scandal

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Department of Budget and Management (DBM), with the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA), UP-NOAH Center and DPWH
Period
2018–present (relaunched 2023; flood-control component since August 2025)
Keywords
public financial management, infrastructure oversight, anti-corruption, geospatial and satellite monitoring

Context

Project DIME (Digital Information for Monitoring and Evaluation), first launched in 2018, discontinued around 2021, and relaunched in 2023 under Executive Order No. 31, is the Philippine Department of Budget and Management's (DBM) platform for tracking major public works using satellite imagery, drone footage and geotagging.

Objectives

Deter irregularities in public infrastructure spending following a scandal in which contractors and officials were found to have collected payment for "ghost" or grossly inflated flood-control projects, including a 72.3-million-peso fraudulent project in Bulacan.

Activities

Its Flood Control Project component launched on 27 August 2025 at the Tripa de Gallina Pumping Station in Pasay City. Through dime.gov.ph, any citizen can look up a project's budget, contractor and construction status, and post public comments that go directly to DBM. The platform integrates flood-hazard mapping from UP-NOAH, geospatial data from the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA), and infrastructure data from DPWH, DOTr and DepEd.

Results

Analysts cite flood-control spending running near 1 billion pesos a day against roughly 300 billion pesos a year in flood damage and 50 billion pesos a year in average losses — the backdrop motivating DIME's relaunch. No published source yet quantifies how many ghost or defective projects DIME itself has caught since the relaunch.

Conclusions

The platform's 2018–2021 discontinuation is a reminder that public-transparency tools can lose institutional support even after being built.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years)
Staffing & skills
Department of Budget and Management (DBM) staff, Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA), UP-NOAH Center, DPWH, DOTr, DepEd data partners

Conditions for success

  • multi-agency data-sharing integration (satellite, drone, geotagging, hazard mapping)
  • a clear legal basis (Executive Order No. 31)
  • a public citizen-comment channel routed directly to the responsible agency
  • sustained political and institutional support, given the platform's prior discontinuation

Common failure modes

  • the platform was discontinued from 2018 to 2021, showing institutional support can lapse
  • no published metric yet on ghost or defective projects caught since the 2023/2025 relaunch

Where it fits

Governance type
national budget/oversight agency, multi-agency partnership
Scale
national, multi-sector infrastructure
Income level
lower-middle-income

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

Similar practices you may find useful