LGU sign-off for completed DPWH projects scrapped under Duterte, says Marcos
MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has ordered that local government officials formally accept completed infrastructure projects before the Department of Public Works and Highways can mark them finished, the Palace said Monday.
Marcos said at a press conference that he was surprised to learn a prior rule requiring local officials to accept projects had been removed during the previous administration of former president Rodrigo Duterte.
Now, he said, a DPWH project must be officially received by the local government.
RELATED: Quezon City, Las Piñas leaders say DPWH projects bypass LGUs
“I have instructed the DPWH and for that matter all of the departments to return that: the previous administration removed that acceptance,” Marcos said in a mix of English and Filipino on Monday.
Marcos said that when he was governor, the DPWH could not mark a project complete without his inspection. But during recent onsite inspections of flood-control works in Bulacan, structures marked complete by the DPWH were barely finished — a pattern that helped expose alleged ghost flood-control projects and prompted parallel investigations in the House and the Senate.
Independent commission's work begins
Marcos created an Independent Commission for Infrastructure to investigate alleged corruption in flood-control projects and other infrastructure.
RELATED: Who's who: Members of Marcos’ independent flood probe body
The commission will be headed by Duterte-era justice Andres Reyes Jr.; former DPWH secretary Rogelio Singson and SGV executive Rossana Fajardo will serve as commissioners.
Part of the commissions' functions is to investigate, subpoena and recommend charges against suspects, Marcos said. It does not have the authority to hold individuals in contempt, he added, because it is an investigative rather than prosecutorial body.
The panel may also make reform recommendations to prevent similar problems in the future.
Scope of the scandal. The controversy has implicated government contractors and lawmakers and has reached into other agencies, including the Commission on Audit.
The Marcos administration is confronting what has become one of the most contentious corruption scandals since the 2013 pork-barrel revelations.
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