THE DEPARTMENT of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the Commission on Audit (CoA) have turned over fraud audit reports to the Office of the Ombudsman, recommending criminal charges against officials and contractors linked to anomalous flood control projects in Bulacan.
The audit reports flagged “ghost” or substandard projects worth hundreds of millions of pesos, many of which were declared complete but were either defective, incomplete, or not built at all.
“We are expediting the filing of cases against contractors and officials of the DPWH. The President has inspected the projects in Bulacan and found the projects are duplicated and super substandard,” Public Works Secretary Vivencio “Vince” B. Dizon told reporters.
“I have received more than a hundred projects that are either ‘ghost’ or substandard and these reports are piling up almost every day… We have recommended the filing of criminal cases against contractors.”
CoA sought charges against three contractors and four DPWH officials after auditors flagged multimillion projects, declared “100% complete,” but presented “shoddy workmanship issues” or were non-existent.
CoA said the fraud audit stemmed from Chairperson Gamaliel A. Cordoba’s directive last August to immediately scrutinize DPWH flood control projects in Bulacan covering July 2022 to May 2025.
“The findings shall form part of the evidentiary record and may be used as basis for administrative and/or criminal liability,” CoA said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the Discayas, who own a construction firm allegedly involved in anomalous flood control projects, said they are willing to be state witnesses after tagging several congressmen, their staff, and officials of the Public Works department.
“We are ready to testify without coercion and volunteer as state witnesses and tell all the corruption that is happening in the House, DPWH, and other government employees to do what is right,” Pacifico Discaya owner of the St. Gerrard Construction General Contractor and Development Corp. told a Senate hearing on Monday.
The Senate is currently investigating flood control projects after Mr. Marcos revealed in August that more than 6,000 flood control projects launched since 2022 lacked key details.
Mr. Discaya alleged that some congressmen and officials of the DPWH forced them to hand over money in exchange for securing government projects.
“We can do nothing because if we do not cooperate, they will create problems for the project that was awarded to us between mutual termination or having a right of way problem which both cause the implementation of the projects to not continue,” he added.
He also revealed that DPWH officials had approached them to ask for a cut of the projects given to their company.
He said that the staff of some congressmen had also met the Discayas to ask for a percentage of the government contracts.
“After we won the bidding, some officials from the DPWH approached us to ask for and take their share of the project cost,” Mr. Discaya said.
“The percentage they are demanding is not less than 10% and even up to 25%, which has become a condition so that the implementation of the program is not hampered,” he added.
Cezarah Discaya, co-owner of St. Gerrard Construction claimed that district engineers, regional directors of DPWH, and chiefs-of-staff of congress members had offered their company projects said to be funded by lawmakers.
“They said we should accept the reality that we have to pay the legislators if we want to continue to have projects in the government. Otherwise, they warned that our company would be removed from the list and would not get any projects, she said.
The Discaya’s company St. Gerrard Construction, among others, were named in the President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.’s list of top 15 contractors that cornered the government flood control contracts.
Since 2022, about P544 billion in public funds have been allocated for flood control nationwide, with about P100 billion cornered by contractors. — Erika Mae P. Sinaking and Adrian H. Halili
