Citizens share corruption horror stories

EYES WIDE OPEN

- IRIS GONZALES

Tales of corruption surrounding flood control projects continue to unravel. There's the district engineer (DE) who allegedly offered Batangas Rep. Leandro Leviste P3 million in cash last week as his share for a project in Leviste's district.

Following my series of columns on the corrupt practices of these unscrupulous DEs and other Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) officials, some readers, apart from my regular sources, shared more horror stories. Some weren't necessarily about corruption but about impropriety and violations of rules governing civil servants.

Complaint against a municipal engineer

One citizen complainant, Cristina Antonio, for instance, shared with me the filings she made against the municipal engineer of San Juan, La Union who was allegedly seen gambling while the province was devastated by a typhoon.

The engineer, Prudel Quinsaat, was found gambling at Thunderbird Casino in La Union on July 26, 2025, just a day after Typhoon Emong devastated several barangays, Antonio said in an Aug. 4 letter to the Civil Service Commission's Contact Center ng Bayan.

Antonio's father personally saw Engr. Quinsaat gambling at the Thunderbird's Pai Gow table between 4 and 5 p.m., a time when La Union was under a declared state of calamity due to the severe impacts of the typhoon.

"Given the magnitude of the typhoon's impact, including the destruction of roads and infrastructure, this behavior reflects gross insensitivity and dereliction of duty, especially from a key official tasked with overseeing public works and infrastructure recovery.