The collective anger from ordinary citizens , taxpayers and flood ravaged communities is palpable. The massive plunder involving flood control projects is not merely an affront to public trust- it is an assault on the very dignity of the people. This is not the time for half-measures or empty promises. The demand is clear: those who have betrayed the nation’s trust must be jailed without bail, and justice must be swift and uncompromising.
The Independent Commission on Infrastructure (ICI) continues its ‘secret’ investigations, Newly minted Ombudsman Boying Remulla promised to charge more than 200 persons, hardworking DPWH secretary are discovering more and more ghost and substandard projects while filing left and right cases at the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) , Bureau of Customs (BOC) , Bureau of Immigration (BI), the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) and the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC),
But the public keenly awaits the filing of formal charges of plunder against those involved and the subsequent start of its trial. This would mean the automatic imprisonment without bail of the accused and the start of government’s efforts to recover the stolen money.
The open and public confessions of DPWH officials-Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo, Assistant Regional Director Henry Alcantara, District Engineer Brice Hernandez, in cahoots with 20 other officers from Bulacan’s first Engineering District-are deliberate acts that enabled the plunder of billions of pesos taxpayers’ money. All of them should be put behind bars ASAP. Add to this the network of alleged bagmen and favored contractors, including Wawao Builders, Discaya-owned St. Timothy, Syms Construction Trading, M3 Konstract Corporation, Amethyst Horizon Builders and Gen. Contractor and Development Corp., TopNotch Catalyst Builders Inc., IM Construction Corp., and others,
Let us be clear: those who orchestrated, facilitated, or profited from this grand theft deserve nothing less than imprisonment without bail. The gravity of the crime-the scale of public suffering inflicted-demands that these individuals face the full force of the law, with no opportunity for escape or influence-peddling. Of course ,only after undergoing due process.
The scandal does not end with DPWH officials and contractors. The accusations leveled by Bernardo , Alcantara and Hernandez against Senators Joel Villanueva, Jinggoy Estrada, Chiz Escudero, former House Appropriations Chair Zaldy Co and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez must be held to the same standard.
Jail without bail must apply to the highest echelons of power if the evidence warrants. No senator, congressman, or public official should be above the law, especially when the stakes are nothing less than the lives and welfare of millions of Filipinos.
The scale of the alleged plunder is staggering, with DPWH confirming more than 420 ghost projects nationwide , but what is even more shocking is the impunity with which these crimes have been committed. The Filipino people are tired of watching the powerful walk free after orchestrating grand heists against the nation. The law must be enforced without fear or favor. There can be no bail, no backdoor deals, no escapes through technicalities. Those implicated-whether DPWH officials, bagmen, contractors, or lawmakers-must be prosecuted to the fullest extent and jailed during the trial without bail.
The anti-plunder law exists for a reason. It is time for our justice system to prove that it is not just a paper tiger, but a true bulwark against corruption.
DPWH,QC solons ignored LGU’s Drainage Master Plan- wasted P17-B flood budget
In 2021, forward-thinking Mayor Joy Belmonte collaborated with specialists from the UP Resilience Institute and the NOAH Center to prepare a flood and drainage master plan (DMP), which the city would integrate with the national government’s efforts. This science-based and data-driven plan encompasses all 142 barangays in the city and incorporates the 44 tributaries and five major river systems that flow via its man-made drainage systems constructed by various government organizations, while also taking into account flooding issues from neighboring LGUs. The Quezon City flood and drainage master plan will only cost P24 billion. After that, it was sent to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to make sure it was in line with the national flood control plan.
Mayor Belmonte further urged her six district congressmen to advocate for national financing for this DMP through Congress and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to permanently safeguard Quezon City residents from recurring floods. However, her honest appeal to her district officials fell on deaf ears.
On Saturday, August 30, a stunning one-hour rainfall of 121 mms broke the Ondoy record set in 2009, flooding Districts 1, 3, and 4, and causing traffic to stop in numerous regions. This massive flooding highlighted the need of the city’s flood and drainage master plan.
After the recent ghost flood control scams in Bulacan broke out, it was discovered that DPWH had previously allotted to Quezon City initially 305 flood control projects worth P14 billion, and then upgraded to 331 projects for P17 billion. The sad and worst aspect is that none of these DPWH projects implemented by its first and second engineering district offices, adhered to the submitted city’s flood and drainage master plan.
Mayor Belmonte was naturally upset, as this happened under the watch of her six city congressmen. She lamented that the P17-billion DPWH budget would have nearly finished the city’s P24-billion science-based and data-driven flood and drainage master plan. She also said the lost money would have paid for the city’s backlog of 5,300 classrooms , more than 350 PhilHealth-accredited health clinics, and built more than 14,000 homes for informal settler families .
Quezon city engineers examined the actions of the DPWH first and second engineering district on these 331 flood control project. What the LGU engineers found are damning and precise: dozens of projects with incorrect or missing coordinates; identical contract sums repeated across different sites as if someone copied and pasted spreadsheets; multi-phased projects ballooning from dozens to scores of phases with no clear delineation; projects marked ‘complete’ despite being visibly incomplete. The Matalahib stream pumping station was built in a creek , and work continued even after LGU issued cease and desist orders . This shows how engineering common sense and LGU cooperation were ignored. Also, 35 ghost flood control projects were discovered along with hundreds more dubious projects worth billions of pesos.
Questions of collusion clearly prevailed over this entire system. There were patterns of corruption among contractors, the implementing agency (DPWH) and our representatives in Congress. Two city districts that are not flood prone obtained the highest flood control funds. Second District Rep. Ralph Tulfo was granted P1.137 billion in flood prevention projects, while Third District Rep. Franz Pumaren received P1.090 billion. Rep PM Vargas, the fifth district congressman, was granted P1.02 billion in his flood-prone region, whereas election loser Marvin Rillo, the fourth district congressman , tallied P1.007 billion. Rep. Marvic Co- Pilar from the sixth district, was allocated P 465.6 million, while Rep. Arjo Atayde from the first district, received P319.8 million for flood control projects. Atayde, PM Vargas, Co-Pilar, Pumaren and Rillo all disputed the charges of corruption related to flood control anomalies.
It is no wonder that Quezon City residents now feel misled and disappointed. The biggest blunder of the DPWH first and second engineering districts and the our congressmen is their purposeful failure to implement the city’s science-based and data-driven Flood and Drainage Master Plan (DMP) meant to permanently alleviate our yearly sufferings. DPWH and our elected solons disregarded everything, clearly for their own agenda and for hundreds of millions of reasons.
This waste of P17 billions of flood control projects is both an administrative embarrassment, poor governance; and a moral outrage. A scandal that raise national alarms. If PHP17 billion in Quezon City, the heart of Metro Manila-a sum large enough to transform lives-can be squandered on projects that do not exist, lack coordinates, or are simply sidewalk paint, our inefficient public procurement system was transformed into a platform for robbery and plunder of peoples’ tax money.
Mayor Belmonte, and her city engineers have done their share by documenting, inspecting, and publicly exposing these huge and shameful anomalies. . It is now up to national institutions-the ICI, the DPWH, the Ombudsman, the COA, and the President-to act quickly, visibly, and without fear or favor. Anything less will be a double betrayal: a breach of public trust by the DPWH public officers and lawmakers in Congress. Today, the flood drains of Quezon City are clogged not just with silt but with corruption of the DPWH engineering districts and our conniving elected legislators. We must unclog both. (next)