‘Almost a billion wasted’: Pumping station in Tondo defective since 2020

MANILA, Philippines — The government's independent infrastructure body has found a P774-million pumping station in Manila that never worked since it was completed and fully paid for in 2020, with residents saying the facility has only made flooding in the district worse. 

The Sunog Apog Pumping Station — a project under the City of Manila's 2nd district — also appears to be a part of a pattern of defective projects pursued under the previous Duterte administration, Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon said after the inspection on Wednesday, September 24. 

The facility on Hermosa Street in Barangay 183, Zone 2, Gagalangin, Tondo, was allotted funds in 2017. Construction began in 2018, and it was completed and fully paid for in 2020. But it has never functioned since then, Dizon told reporters after the inspection.

Funds kept flowing despite failures

Dizon said another P94 million had been earmarked to upgrade the facility this year. But he also expressed doubt that the additional funds would make the station finally operational after half a decade. 

The secretary compared the Manila pumping station to another flood control project he and Independent Commission for Infrastructure Special Adviser Benjamin Magalong inspected in Arayat, Pampanga on Tuesday, September 23.

That project, started in 2018 and funded through several phases, broke down barely a year after its completion in 2023. 

“This is really very similar to what Mayor Benjie and I saw yesterday in Pampanga,” Dizon said. “They kept pouring in funds… but after just a year, it was broken. Same are under the past administration.”

“What we’re seeing is it seems to be a pattern in these projects — funds are released, payments are made, but they turn out either substandard or sometimes even ghost projects,” Dizon said.

Community impact 

Dizon said what made the case of Sunog Apog worse was that the faulty pumping station had aggravated flooding in the area instead of preventing it.

Then-DPWH Secretary Mark Villar led the inauguration of the project in 2018 and had then touted the project as the department's "long-term solution" to the rampant flooding in the following areas: España, Sampaloc, Rizal Avenue, part of Maria Clara, and other parts of Quezon City.

“Instead of helping, it made things worse,” he said. “Because before this was built, the water level here was low. When they put this up — and obviously it hasn’t worked since completion — the flooding here became worse.”

Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko” Moreno Domagoso described the pumping station as one of the city’s biggest scandals.

Moreno added that the facility had not even secured a building permit and had no power connection, which he said was further proof that it was never made operational.

Third-party review ordered

Dizon said the DPWH would suspend the P94-million project and instead commission a third-party assessment to determine what repairs are actually needed. 

"Because we might just be throwing nearly P100 million here," the DPWH secretary said.

Even as he sought reassurances from DPWH officials in Manila as to what solutions were needed for the project, Dizon expressed a lack of "trust" in their suggestions.

"To be honest, I don't trust them. I don't trust people who said that is the solution, simply because it's inside DPWH," he said.

While he pointed out that both the Manila and Pampanga projects were started under the Duterte administration, Dizon also stressed that the irregularities in infrastructure works likely go "way, way back."

“I think this started way, way back. But clearly this is proof,” Dizon said. “That's why the president's executive order covering ten years is correct."

With more typhoons expected to dump rain in Manila in the coming weeks, Moreno said the situation in the second district with the defective pumping station demanded an urgent solution.

“Tomorrow we will suffer again because there is a possible typhoon. The week after that, there is another,” he said. “So once and for all, we are appealing [to the DPWH] as a local government.”