OPINION: Our flood control is so bad, Filipino Gen Z is calling NYC Mayor Mamdani to fix it

Filipino TikTok users are turning to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani in jest as frustration grows over flooding, flood control projects, and government accountability.

Filipino TikTok users have been jokingly calling on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to come to the Philippines and fix the country’s flooding, traffic, and other everyday problems. The unlikely appeals are part of a recent trend that casts Mamdani as a real-life Batman—someone who responds quickly to citizens’ complaints and gets seemingly small problems fixed.

The online craze may be funny on the surface, but it also reflects a deeper frustration among Filipinos, particularly younger ones, who have grown tired of seeing the same problems persist despite years of government promises and spending.

Heavy downpours from habagat rains battered Metro Manila and Luzon over the past week. More than anything, many Filipinos have come to know that the life-threatening floods that accompany these rains are more the result of poor infrastructure, profit-focused urban planning, and substandard flood control projects.

Adding to the weight of the recent floods is the one-year mark of the flood control investigation: a painful reminder for many that, one year on, nothing seems to have substantially progressed in how the government conceptualizes flood control, manages the infrastructure bidding process, and holds elected officials accountable for the misuse of public funds.

Filipinos aren’t dumb. 

They know that the arrests of a few people do little to settle questions about those who designed, enabled, or profited from a system that allowed billions in public funds to be misused. They know, too, that flooding and corruption are not separate problems but two sides of the same failure in governance.

Whether or not they have the concepts or vocabulary to elucidate just how much the system sucks and why, the average Filipino already knows it from the burden of everyday living.

For Gen Z, this desperation is often expressed through the language of “sanaol”—the feeling of wishing they, too, had something someone else has. The latest subject of this jealousy—or longing, even—is New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

TikTok this week was abuzz with Filipino youths appealing to Mamdani to stop the flooding, suspend classes, and solve traffic problems. Even the one day of uninterrupted sunshine this week was attributed to the foreign mayor.

The 34-year-old Mamdani won the New York City mayoralty race in November 2025, becoming the city’s youngest mayor in over a century. Identifying as a democratic socialist, he ran on a platform of bringing down the costs of everyday services like mass transit, groceries, and rent—which appealed to progressive and Gen Z voters.

The internet has likened him to the fictional superhero Batman because of his swift and highly visible responses when mentioned on social media. New Yorkers have been posting videos tagging the mayor with their complaints, with Mamdani often responding by getting seemingly small problems addressed by the city government.

He has so far responded to complaints involving potholes, drinking fountains, pedestrian crossings, narrow sidewalks, and snow-filled roads while hiring more seasonal workers and raising hourly wages in the process. One netizen even jokingly blamed Mamdani for not yet meeting a boyfriend, and the mayor responded with a guide to free summer activities offered by the city government.

While many would argue that swiftness and visibility are the bare minimum for local governments, Filipinos had gotten used to waiting indefinitely for even a smidge of progress on the smallest construction projects, government services, and even legislative reforms and investigations.

Seeing quick, visible, and lasting solutions to otherwise small but consequential problems can feel bittersweet—because it shows that better governance is possible, but also that it can be slow to reach our own shores, and perhaps our own electorate.

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