President Marcos appealed to the public to dispose of their trash properly as he noted that the government's flood control infrastructures did not work as intended due to the garbage that blocked them.

Marcos said this as he conducted ocular inspections of areas in Metro Manila flooded due to the onslaught of Super Typhoon Carina and the enhanced southwest monsoon on Thursday, July 25.

In an interview in Navotas, the President said the Camanava area had enough pumping stations but the trash that blocked caused the infrastructure not to work properly.

With this, Marcos appealed to the public to practice proper waste disposal.

"Yung pumping stations natin marami na. Nagkaproblema lang (We have a lot of pumping stations, we just encountered a problem)," he said.

"Sana matuto naman ang tao. 'Wag kayong nagtatapon ng basura dahil ang basura yun ang nagbara doon sa mga pump natin kaya hindi kasing effective na pwede (I hope the people will learn. Please don't throw away your trash carelessly because they are blocking our pumps that's why they weren't effective)," he added.

The President noted that Navotas City, which was still 80 percent submerged, has 81 pumping stations while Valenzuela, which he described as a "basin," has 32.

Marcos also pointed out climate change as one of the reasons for flooding in several areas of the country.

"Mas malaki ang baha, mas maraming nabaha na lugar kesa panahon ng Ondoy (More places were flooded than in Ondoy)," he said, referring to Typhoon Ondoy which ravaged the country in 2009.

"Mas marami tayong flood control ngayon kesa noon. Pero (We have more flood control infrastructure than before. But), climate change. This is what the effects of climate change are," he added.

Despite this, President Marcos is open to revisiting the designs of the pumping stations in the country.

"Marami ng flood control [projects] pero nasapawan sa dami ng tubig (We have plenty of flood control projects but the amount of water overpowered them). So we have to reexamine some of the designs of our flood control," he said.

In his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday, July 22, Marcos assured Filipinos that the government was preparing for the impact of the harsh rains brought about by the La Niña phenomenon.

He said that in the past two years, nearly 100 evacuation centers have already been built. Meanwhile, in January of this year, the government started the operations of the Disaster Response Command Center, which shall serve as the central hub for the government’s disaster response efforts.

In addition, 5,500 flood control projects have already been completed while more are ongoing construction across the country.