Malacañang has downplayed calls to abolish the entire Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) over the corruption issues hounding the billions in infrastructure projects it implemented.
Rather, the Marcos administration preferred the ongoing move of DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon to weed out unscrupulous officials and personnel and promote its honest employees.
‘Not everyone leading or working at the DPWH can be said to have committed wrongdoing. There are still public servants and officials who fulfill their duties,’ Palace press officer Claire Castro told reporters in a briefing on Monday.
‘At this point, there are no plans to abolish the agency because what needs to be removed are those who have done corrupt practices,’ she added.
Castro noted that it would not be difficult for Dizon to identify who among the about 20,000 personnel of the DPWH across the country should be dismissed.
‘As Secretary Vince said, many will be dismissed, and because of this, it serves as a warning to those who will enter the agency: You must be upright, you must have integrity, and you must truly fulfill your duties in accordance with the law and in service to the people,’ she said.
Promote deserving casual workers
On Monday, Dizon said the DPWH would begin filling the nearly 2,000 vacant positions in the agency, some through the promotion of job order and contractual employees, many of whom have served for years on short-term contracts.
‘First and foremost, we should elevate those who are deserving, honest, and hardworking people already in the DPWH, including our job order employees,’ Dizon said.
Dizon’s self-imposed deadline of ‘a maximum of 60 days’ to carry out a deep cleansing of the DPWH’s workforce is almost due.
On his first day as DPWH chief on September 1, Dizon carried out the order of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to make a ‘clean sweep’ of the agency, whose officials and personnel are under scrutiny for being allegedly involved in corrupt practices in implementing hundreds of billions of flood control projects.
He ordered all officials of the agency, from the top ranks in the central office down to the district level, to submit their courtesy resignations. This covers all undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, division heads, regional directors, and district engineers across the country.
More than 250 officials of the DPWH were affected by this call, with 197 being heads of district engineering offices in different parts of the country.He had since brought with him five undersecretaries, including former Undersecretary Arrey Perez, who resigned on Friday after he was linked by Batangas Rep. Leandro Leviste to flood control contractors. Perez denied the allegation, while Leviste backtracked from his revelation.
Several DPWH officials had also been dismissed or had resigned from their posts since then, including former Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral, and dismissed Bulacan district engineers Henry Alcantara and Brice Hernandez.
After a cleansing of the officials, a ‘thorough review’ of all the almost 20,000 personnel of the agency would follow.
‘Despite the allegations of systemic corruption, I believe that there are still many good and capable employees in the DPWH. The directive of our President is to find them and place them in sensitive and important positions,’ Dizon had said.
Earlier this month, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian proposed to dismantle the DPWH and establish a new one, considering the gravity of the corruption that marred the agency.
‘If you were to ask me, let us just establish a new DPWH. Let us hire other people because I believe, and my philosophy in management, is that you’ll come to a point where you can no longer fix something, so there’s a need to create a new one,’ he said.
‘Because I think it will take years and years for Secretary Vince to clean up. We need to do many things – digitalization, of course, file cases to everyone involved, and we also need to check the others if they are doing what is right,’ he added.
Among the oldest agencies
The DPWH is one of the oldest agencies in the bureaucracy, with the agency citing that it emerged from its earliest form dating back in 1565.
It was in 1868 when the Bureau of Public Works and Highways (Obras Publicas) and Bureau of Communications and Transportation (Communicationes y Meteologia) were organized under a civil engineer designated as ‘director general.’
Following the Philippine independence in 1898, the revolutionary government under General Emilio Aguinaldo created four departments, including the Department of War and Public Works.
After decades of evolution, the current DPWH was established in 1987 by virtue of Executive Order No. 124 by then-President Corazon Aquino.
As the primary engineering and construction arm of the government, the DPWH is responsible for the planning, design, construction and maintenance of infrastructures such as roads and bridges, flood control systems, water resource development projects and other public works.