Rappler’s flood control crowdsourcing wins at Digital Media Awards Asia-Pacific

MANILA, Philippines – Rappler’s initiative to crowdsource information about flood control projects from citizens to aid in corruption reporting won “Best in Audience Engagement” at the Digital Media Awards 2026 for the Asia-Pacific region on Tuesday, April 28.

The awarding ceremony took place at the Manila Hotel, where head of community Pia Ranada, reporter James Patrick Cruz, community engagement specialist Joan Alindogan, and community growth specialist Aidan Bernales received the award on behalf of Rappler.

#FloodControlPH is a crowdsourcing and participatory journalism initiative led by Rappler’s journalists and civic engagement team, empowering Rappler readers and the general public to report suspicious flood control projects in their communities through a public chat room on the Rappler app.

Rappler was awarded the gold medal in the “Best in Audience Engagement” category. This category recognizes initiatives that build “strong, sustained relationships with audiences through intentional, inclusive, and digitally relevant engagement,” according to the citation read out during the ceremony.

Winning projects are those that show how audience participation “contributes to loyalty, trust, and growth… through dialogue, co-creation, and community empowerment.”

The silver prize went to Australian news outlet Capital Brief for Ideas, a space for opinion and analyses written by contributors. For the category’s special award for small or medium companies, the prize went to Kumparan, an Indonesian news portal, for its initiative, Multi-channel Journalism, in which audiences are able to access information in their preferred format.

Another Philippine group received an award: non-profit sustainability organization Sustina. It won the Climate Culture Journalism Innovation Grant given by climateXchange, an organization that supports climate culture reporting.

In all, there were 14 categories in the Digital Media Awards.

Impact of FloodControlPH campaign

Since Rappler launched the FloodControlPH campaign in August 2025, over 250 corruption tips have been received through the FloodControlPH chat room, the #NotOnMyWatch Google Form tipline, and tips sent to investigative@rappler.com. Tips have come in from 12 of the country’s 18 regions.

Videos produced by Rappler, in which our team visited and verified citizen-reported flood control projects, as well as our reports on flood control corruption, have garnered at least 10.3 million views on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. The flood control articles garnered over 960,000 page views in 2025.

These citizen reports have contributed to Rappler’s investigative and in-depth reporting on the flood control scandal.

Several of these investigations led to real-world impact and accountability: a Department of Justice official resigned following one of our stories and was investigated by the Office of the Ombudsman; Rappler’s “politicontractors” map, built partly on citizen tips, is used by watchdog groups in their research and push for accountability.

After a Rappler investigation, a plunder complaint was filed against members of the prominent Espina political clan over government contracts awarded to a company owned by their family while its members held public office. Included in the plunder complaint was a provincial governor and congressman who are members of the political dynasty.

FloodControlPH aimed to boost civic engagement in the wake of a July 2025 public report made by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. about corruption in flood control projects nationwide that have led to substandard or even non-existent projects paid for by public funds. 

Rappler aimed to turn citizens’ outrage into action, giving them a platform to report anomalous, substandard, or defective flood control infrastructure so that Rappler’s journalists can then investigate them and publish reports aimed at exacting accountability from government officials responsible.

Citizens acted as a first step of discovery for Rappler journalists. They gathered initial information, like the location of flood control projects, photos, and videos; which they then entrusted Rappler to pursue.

Rebranding and expansion

Since then, Rappler has rebranded FloodControlPH to CorruptionWatch, to include all kinds of abuse of public funds, not just flood control projects.

The reports from citizens are first assessed for quality, then farmed to Rappler staff who could follow up on the tip. Under the banner of Corruption Watch, Rappler has also held workshops on accountability reporting, and hopes to expand this to more parts of the country, with support from institutions and communities who believe in the mission. (Read about all Rappler events and roadshows here.)

If you want to help Rappler strengthen civic empowerment initiatives like FloodControlPH and CorruptionWatch, we hope you consider becoming a Rappler+ member, or donating to our newsroom. – Rappler.com