DPWH slaps lifetime ban on Wawao Builders; charges loom
MANILA, Philippines — Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Vince Dizon ordered a perpetual lifetime ban for Wawao Builders, disallowing them from working with the agency moving forward.
Wawao is one of the top-earning contractors who have cornered the Philippines’ flood control projects. The firm has been tagged in ghost flood control projects and has since come under fire for alleged corruption.
“I will also order the perpetual lifetime blacklisting of Wawao builders from DPWH and all their possible affiliates,” Dizon said in a media interview in Bulacan after inspecting a Wawao-built flood control project.
The flood control project in question cost around P96.5 million and was marked finished by local DPWH officials.
The onsite inspection, however, revealed that the project was barely done, with a backhoe on the site.
Dizon said that it is not just Wawao that will be banned but all of its known affiliates. This means that other companies that are separate from Wawao but have the same owners.
SYMS Construction Trading has also been perpetually banned. They are the firm behind the P55-million flood control ghost project in Bulacan that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. inspected.
The DPWH is set to file charges against both Wawao and SYMS with the Department of Justice (DOJ).
“All the people involved here, both those who are clearly dummies and the real owners or the beneficial owners, depending on the investigation of the DOJ,” Dizon said.
Wawao Builders general manager Mark Allan Arevalo, who went viral for his strange and awkward behavior during the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee probes into flood control, was accused of being a dummy.
During the hearing. Arevalo was evasive, often invoking his right to self-incrimination.
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