DPWH cleansing looms amid flood anomalies

MANILA, Philippines — Expect a massive purge in the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Secretary Manuel Bonoan said yesterday, as allegations of involvement of many of its officials and personnel in corruption in the implementation of flood control projects continue to unravel.

In an interview with dzBB radio, Bonoan vowed to hold accountable DPWH officers and personnel who would be found responsible for substandard and ghost flood control projects. He said appropriate criminal charges would be filed against them.

“We will see who are involved in these inferior and ghost projects. And I think we have to cleanse up the organization if necessary,” he said.

On Friday, Bonoan announced that officials of the district engineering offices of the DPWH in Bulacan, including its head Henry Alcantara, had been relieved of their posts and placed on floating status.

Bulacan appears to be the province with confirmed ghost projects, according to Bonoan.

In Oriental Mindoro, what had been flagged were projects of inferior quality, he pointed out.

The DPWH chief has rejected calls for his resignation, saying his fate is up to President Marcos, whose scathing remarks against corruption in flood control projects have touched off public outcry.

In the interview, Bonoan also said they have mechanisms in the DPWH for monitoring infrastructure projects, but admitted there are flaws in it, including their not requiring the central office to regularly conduct an audit of the work of field offices.

“We have monitoring. Well, it’s just basic information we are receiving. And field valuation done from the central office is sporadic,” he said.

As the central office is unable to validate all projects, it usually relies mainly on reports and pictures of supposedly finished products sent by field offices, which have their own auditors.

Bonoan said he has instructed DPWH officials to report if they are getting external pressure to approve certain projects.

Senators warned

Meanwhile, Sen. Panfilo Lacson said his Senate colleagues and not just members of the House of Representatives may be implicated in anomalies in flood control projects.

He issued the warning days after he named House members and government officials as having profited from substandard and non-existent projects.

Stressing that lawmakers themselves benefit from the system of budget insertions, Lacson said he was not discounting the possibility that some senators may be profiting from as much as 25 percent share from the lawmaker who proposed the insertions.

“I am not saying it’s just members of the House. It is possible that some senators introduced insertions for such projects, and may even have profited from the 25 percent share for the ‘funder’ or proponent of the insertions from the flood control project costs,” Lacson said in Filipino in a radio interview.

“I’ll put it this way. There may be senators and House members who may be connected to anomalous flood control projects,” he added. But he declined to name names as he was still building up evidence.

In a privilege speech on Wednesday, Lacson cited Oriental Mindoro Rep. Arnan Panaligan as having presented in his accomplishment report a flood control project that turned out to be of substandard quality.

Budget records checked by The STAR showed that while the 2023 National Expenditure Program listed only eight projects worth P605.5 million for the province, the approved budget showed 19 projects worth P1.419 billion, including two P300-million esplanades in Naujan and several realigned projects from the DPWH regional office.

Lacson noted that both chambers of Congress have the power to propose amendments to the national budget, often justified as efforts to help constituents or fulfill campaign pledges.

But he warned that the practice also opens the door to commissions and influence in the choice of contractors.

“When you insert, you have claim, or royalty, or the right to choose the contractor for the project,” he said.

He renewed his call for full transparency in the budgeting process, particularly by requiring that lawmakers’ insertions be publicly identified. This, he said, would make tracing questionable projects to their proponents easier.

Without such safeguards, Lacson said the “hubris” driving systemic corruption in projects like those uncovered in Bulacan’s first engineering district would persist.

“Those involved in the corruption have become overconfident such that they disregard public perception, opinion and need. They close their eyes to the public in favor of their greed, thus the ghost projects, so that all those involved will profit,” he said.

‘Most notorious’

In Bulacan, multiple flood control projects have been marked completed by the DPWH but were non-existent. Some projects have also been marked completed and validated as completed by Lacson’s team but still continued to receive allocated funding from the national budget.

Lacson said the problem was most widespread in Bulacan, which he described as “the most notorious” province in their case studies, citing reports of at least 30 ghost projects.

Last week, Bonoan himself admitted to having knowledge of ghost projects in the province.

Lacson alleged that the projects followed a pattern: identical contract prices of P77.199 million, listed as “riverbank protection structures,” and awarded repeatedly to the same contractors.

The senator further claimed that a “syndicate” within the DPWH Bulacan First District Engineering Office was behind the scheme, allegedly borrowing contractors’ licenses and declaring projects completed even without construction.

Under the scheme, Lacson said budget items appear in the General Appropriations Act and contracts with identical amounts were awarded for multiple projects, whether near or far apart – just like in the case in Hagonoy villages.

His office, he added, was prepared to provide names and witnesses if authorities launch a formal investigation into the Bulacan First District Engineering Office.

The senator also urged the public to help expose anomalies by reporting them to authorities, including through the government’s SumbongSaPangulo website.

“I am hoping the endgame is that the big fish will be held accountable – charged, prosecuted, convicted and jailed, so they will not be emulated,” he said.

Sen. Francis Pangilinan, for his part, is pushing for the creation of a Department of Water Resources – a unified agency that may be tasked to manage the country’s water resources and enforce accountability in flood prevention.

The bill, filed in July, seeks to create the DWR to consolidate functions currently handled by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the Department of Agriculture, the National Water Resources Board and the DPWH.

“Water issues are multi-faceted therefore there should be a separate department of water,” he said in a statement in Filipino.

“It should be under one agency to ensure quick and coordinated action,” he added.

The senator said his proposal addresses overlapping problems in flood control, irrigation and potable water supply.