The haunted province of Bulacan

Panfilo "Ping" Lacson dropped a nuclear bomb this week on the country's multibillion-peso flood control projects, many of which were flagged as substandard or, worse, outright ghost projects.

- RONALD LLAMAS

His bombshell was so massive that the corrupt scrambled in panic, like cockroaches scurrying into the cracks after a nuclear blast.

In his privilege speech, Lacson laid bare the anatomy of corruption in the country's infrastructure projects, the "corruptionary" of plunderers and the unholy trinity of crooked politicians, DPWH district engineers and their beloved contractors. From Pampanga and Mindoro to Bulacan, he exposed a long list of substandard and non-existent projects worth billions, shamelessly smuggled into the national budget as "insertions," "amendments" and "parked items." And oh boy, Lacson, the people's "ghostbuster," is just warming up.

But what truly caught the public's attention was the notoriety of Bulacan for having substandard and ghost flood control projects. It has practically become the country's ghost capital, a haunted province, not by spirits, but by shameless corruption. Lacson zeroed in on Bulacan's 1st Engineering District, once under former District Engineer Henry Alcantara, and later Brice Hernandez. Lacson said that the two oversaw 28 projects in 2024 alone, each conveniently priced at P72 million. They didn't even bother to make the project costs look different from one another. Too lazy to disguise the scheme, yet too brazen in dipping their hands into the cookie jar.