AFP spots 60 'ghost' flood control projects, to review about 16,000
MANILA, Philippines — The Armed Forces of the Philippines has identified around 60 non-existent or "ghost" flood control projects out of the 8,000 it has so far inspected across the country, AFP Chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. said Friday, October 24.
The AFP's discovery comes after Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon asked for the help of the military and the police in verifying whether projects declared on paper are real. Brawner said the AFP was given coordinates of the supposed project locations to check whether the infrastructure actually exists.
"Out of the 8,000 flood control projects, around 60 are ghost projects," Brawner said in an interview with DZRH. "That's the latest statistics that reached me."
The number will likely grow as Brawner said the AFP was assigned to inspect around 16,000 projects in total.
Brawner said the AFP’s role is limited to confirming whether projects physically exist, since military units lack the technical expertise to assess construction quality or compliance with specifications. Reports of non-existent projects are referred to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for validation by its engineers.
He explained that Dizon sought the AFP’s help because of its nationwide presence of military units. “We were given coordinates of the supposed project sites. Our units on the ground went to check if these actually exist,” Brawner said.
For future projects, Brawner made it clear that the AFP's engineers will not take part in the actual construction of future projects as their role is limited only to supervision.
This is amid Sen. Robin Padilla's calls for the AFP's special engineering unit to build flood control projects instead of contractors. Dizon had also earlier praised AFP engineers for their work at Clark, saying projects met specifications and were completed quickly.
The AFP earlier said it was transitioning its engineering brigades to becoming "combat engineer units" to aid in territorial defense and security operations.
Brawner said the AFP has only five engineer brigades in the Army, plus one each in the Air Force and Navy.
Earlier this month, Dizon turned over to the Independent Commission for Infrastructure a list of 421 ghost flood control projects found by the DPWH, PNP, AFP and the Department of Economy, Planning and Development.
The scale of ghost flood control works may be far larger however as Dizon said about 100,000 projects still need validation.
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