Lacson: DPWH district engineers reduced to 'bagmen'

District engineers in the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) have been reduced to acting as "bagmen" for powerful contractors and political patrons behind anomalous flood control projects, Sen. Panfilo Lacson said following the arrest of a district engineer who attempted to bribe Batangas 1st district Rep. Leandro Legarda-Leviste.

- With Gilbert Bayoran

Lacson said it was unusual that a district engineer would personally offer bribes to a legislator, noting this only proves that engineers are fronting for bigger interests manipulating the release of multibillion-peso projects.

"DPWH Batangas 1st District engineer Abelardo Calalo is far from being a 'big fish.' His arrest after a foiled bribery try on Rep. Leviste reinforces my theory that some DPWH officials, at least at the district engineering level, have already been relegated to being 'legmen' and worse, 'bagmen' of some 'powerful contractors' or 'funders' responsible for the insertions in the budget," Lacson told reporters yesterday.

He urged investigators to look beyond Calalo.

"The investigation of this instant case should dig deeper to determine under whose direction Calalo was offering the bribe money. And I am not referring to higher DPWH officials but to the 'funder/s' or the lawmaker/s who made the insertions in the 2025 GAA (general appropriations act)," he said.