Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson on Thursday said it would probably be more fitting to ask ‘who is not guilty?’ amid the deep and widespread corruption in relation to the government’s infrastructure programs.
According to Lacson, he and his staff reviewed ‘classified’ documents of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), which he had flagged earlier for systematic anomalies in substandard and ghost flood control programs.
‘[We] all wondered aloud if the more appropriate question to ask is, ‘Who is not?’ rather than, ‘Who is guilty?’ So sad to realize how widely corrupt our government infrastructure program has gone,’ he said in a post on X.
He said these documents include those papers relating to flood control projects to farm-to-market roads, among others.
Lacson cited Public Works and Highways Secretary Vince Dizon’s initial findings that at least 421 out of some 8,000 flood control projects inspected by the DPWH, the Department of Economy, Planning and Development (DepDev), the Philippine National Police, and the Armed Forces of the Philippines were ‘ghost’ projects.
He noted as well the revelation by Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian that over P10 billion worth of farm-to-market roads programmed under the 2023 and 2024 national budgets have been ‘extremely overpriced.’
Gatchalian disclosed at least one project costing 23 times more than the standard price set by the Department of Public Works and Highways and other projects with markups of up to 70 percent.
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Lacson earlier said that almost all senators of the 19th Congress inserted at least P100 billion worth of items in the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA), mostly in favor of the DPWH, for infrastructure projects, including flood control.
He cited documents he had gathered showing these were individual insertions, although they were eventually held ‘for later release.’
He also said that members of the House of Representatives likewise made their own amendments or insertions in the 2025 national budget, with the total exceeding by ‘much, much more’ those made by the Senate.
Citing information he accessed, Lacson said the list of the House members who made insertions in the DPWH’s favor in last year’s GAA was several pages long, with the names in alphabetical order. ‘It was like a roll call,’ he lamented.
When asked if the amount was larger than the insertions made by senators, Lacson replied: ‘Much, much more.’
He explained that the DPWH received such massive insertions because many lawmakers were likely in collusion with the department’s corrupt officials to get their share of huge kickbacks from projects-even if it meant giving the DPWH a bigger budget than the education sector, which was in violation of the 1987 Constitution.
In privilege speeches earlier, Lacson revealed how DPWH officials pocketed public funds, some of them gambling away taxpayers’ money in casinos.
He also bared several money-making schemes involving various requirements, including irregularities done by junior DPWH personnel.