ASEANEWS HEADLINE | MANILA: Ping: Pols get lion’s share of flood control kickbacks
Sen. Ping Lacson sa ghost flood projects: We badly need greed control
Halos isang oras na ibinahagi ni Sen. Ping Lacson sa plenaryo ng Senado ang findings ng kanyang tanggapan ukol sa maanomalyang flood control projects at mga contractor na humawak nito.
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Budget insertions, unprogrammed funds linked to anomalies
MANILA, Philippines — Politicians – including lawmakers – are the ones who have profited most from substandard and non-existent flood control projects, in collusion with private contractors and corrupt public works officials, Sen. Panfilo Lacson said yesterday.
In a privilege speech, Lacson said lawmakers were able to get kickbacks as project proponents through funding insertions and unprogrammed appropriations in the national budget.
He revealed a “nasty” corruption racket among “greedy” members of the House of Representatives, their accomplices from the private sector and Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) district engineers, and even state auditors.
He said the “corruptionary” of moneymaking schemes in flood control projects include cost cuts to get kickbacks, substandard construction to scrimp on project funding, repeat funding despite project completion and what he called the worst kind – “ghost” projects.
With such anomalies, he said tax money literally “drifted away and down the drain.”
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“All this went straight into the pockets of the insatiably greedy – corrupt-to-the-core politicians, DPWH officials and contractors, conniving among themselves, unmindful of the lives lost and the properties destroyed, all for their lust for money,” Lacson said.
Lacson identified contractors behind substandard projects as Eddmari Construction in Candating, Arayat, Pampanga; Silverwolves Construction Corp. in Bauang, La Union and in Baco, Oriental Mindoro; Sunwest Inc. also in Oriental Mindoro.
Lacson also flagged several ghost projects in Oriental Mindoro and Bulacan.
In his speech, Lacson said that in every project, lawmakers who also acted as project proponents would get 20 to 25 percent and the rest divided among public works district engineers, state auditors and contractors.
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He also bewailed the lawmakers’ use of unprogrammed appropriations to amass profit from projects. Unprogrammed appropriations have ballooned exponentially in recent years, and are seen as the latest version of the congressional pork barrel.
The most extensive budget insertions are done behind closed doors, during the bicameral conference.
‘Greed control’
“The depth of corruption has become so overwhelming that it drowns us in our sad state: more than flood control, what the Filipino people badly need to see is greed control,” he added.
Throughout the speech, Lacson mentioned only one congressman – Oriental Mindoro first district Rep. Arnan Panaligan, who even posted on his Facebook page his “accomplishment report” on his flood control project under his “Aksyon ng Gobyerno at Inisyatibo sa Larangang Lehislatura” (AGILA). Panaligan would deny knowledge of implementation of projects in his district.
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Lacson called Panaligan a “mapag-angking (covetuous) congressman” who is apparently so influential that he was able to fund his projects through congressional insertions by tapping the unprogrammed funds.
Lacson called it the new “pork barrel” in the budget, with Naujan getting P10 billion or a “sweeping 55 percent” of Oriental Mindoro’s 2025 flood control budget, or a total P19 billion in the past three years.
Among the congressman’s projects sourced from unprogrammed funds are: P95-million Alag river flood control structure in Barangay Burbuli, Baco, Oriental Mindoro with Silverwolves Construction Corp. as contractor; and P231-million flood control structure in Butas River, Barangay San Jose with Rayman Builders as contractor.
“Where there are multi-million projects, the eagle takes its perch,” Lacson said in Filipino. AGILA is Filipino for eagle.
“AGILA, but the eagle’s perch is still submerged in floodwaters. This is just one of the banners and social media posts on ‘congressional insertions’ of politicians across the country,” he said.
Still on Naujan, Lacson said he deployed his team and traversed the barangays to check on awarded contracts from 2023 to 2025, and found that of the 70 barangays, only one – Barangay Mulawin – got P1.9 billion, of which P810 million is in the NEP and the remaining P1.1 billion “inserted in the House version.”
Chopped projects
In another Naujan “top-billing barangay” called Tagumpay, Lacson said there is a curious case of a “flooded flood-control” project – a P2.55-billion road dike project chopped into 10 phases but was destroyed twice just this year due to the typhoons.
Lacson said substandard “sheet piles” were not properly buried along the riverbanks, causing an overflow of the dike.
The road dike in Barangay Inarawan, also in Naujan, crumbled, even if it was a recipient of P1.8-billion flood control projects with Sunwest Inc. – one of the top 15 flood control contractors – as implementor.
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The other substandard projects mentioned by Lacson are: a failed riverbank mitigation project in Candating, Arayat, Pampanga that was repeatedly funded in 2023 and 2024, causing the contractor Eddmari Construction and Trading to bag P274.8-million budget for repetitive repairs; and a P967-million river basin project in Naguilian, La Union divided into 10 packages, and a P623-million project divided into seven packages in Bauang, both with the contractor Silverwolves Construction Corp.
Lacson said the projects were not found in the 2024 NEP but “magically” appeared in the approved General Appropriations Act (GAA).
Lacson said the projects were substandard because of the following “cuts” – eight to 10 percent for DPWH district engineers and an extra two to three percent for them from the contractors’ income; five to six percent for members of the bids and awards committee; 0.5 to one percent for auditors; five to six percent “passing through or parking fee” also called “royalties” or grease money for politicians who control the district where the project would be implemented; a whopping 20 to 25 percent cut for the “funder” or politician project proponent.
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“It would be considered lucky enough for a project to get 40 percent funds remaining. There is an evident pattern of this nasty distribution of public funds among crooks,” Lacson said.
Meanwhile, Panaligan said that while there are indeed flood control projects in Oriental Mindoro, it was the regional office of the DPWH that came up with the plans and held the bidding for contractors.
“The congressman has no say in coming up with the program of works, in designing and awarding (of the projects),” Panaligan told “Storycon” on One News in Filipino.
“It was the DPWH that identified all of that. It was the DPWH that planned… bid out and awarded the contractors for the project,” he added.
Panaligan claimed that most of the projects were already in the proposed budget crafted by the Executive and submitted to Congress.
He denied knowledge of any congressional insertion for his district, saying he was neither part of the small committee nor the bicameral committee on the budget.
“The insertions, I did not ask for that,” he claimed, adding that he did not authorize anyone to use his face and name as proponent for flood control projects.
Panaligan also denied having connections with any contractor, saying he did not accept any campaign contribution from any of them.– Neil Jayson Servallos, Janvic Mateo
