'Sumbong sa Pangulo' receives 16,000 infra complaints

Over 16,000 complaints received through the Sumbong sa Pangulo website would be forwarded to the newly created Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), which has begun its investigation on anomalous flood control projects, a Palace official said yesterday.

- HELEN FLORES

"As of now, we have received 16,275 reports through sumbongsapan-gulo.ph. All of these will be forwarded to the ICI," Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro said, without elaborating.

President Marcos launched the website in August to allow the public to report nonoperational or anomalous flood control projects, some of which he had inspected.

Castro said the first meeting of the ICI was held on Tuesday at the Department of Public Works and Highways' office in Manila. The commission has also started drawing up its organizational structure, she said.

Marcos created the ICI through Executive Order No. 94. The body, headed by retired Supreme Court justice Andres Reyes Jr., will investigate infrastructure projects in the past 10 years suspected of being tainted with corruption.

Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, a retired police general, has been designated special adviser and investigator.

At the same press briefing, Castro lambasted Vice President Sara Duterte after she criticized Marcos' handling of anomalous flood control projects.