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

Origin: 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 platform for tracking major public works using satellite imagery, drone footage and geotagging. Its Flood Control Project component, launched on 27 August 2025 at the Tripa de Gallina Pumping Station in Pasay City, was a direct response to 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.
What citizens can see: 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 now integrates flood-hazard mapping from the University of the Philippines' UP-NOAH Center and geospatial data from the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA), alongside road, rail, irrigation and school-infrastructure data from DPWH, DOTr and DepEd.
Evidence and caveats: Analysts have noted 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. However, no published source yet quantifies how many ghost or defective projects DIME itself has caught, and the platform's 2018–2021 discontinuation is a reminder that public-transparency tools can lose institutional support.

Read the full analysis: https://www.dime.gov.ph/