To control floods, corruption, abolish DPWH

VIRTUAL REALITY

- TONY LOPEZ

Abolish the Department of Public Works and Highways. For two reasons: 1) It is the biggest source of rampant corruption in government. It is today the Philippines' biggest criminal enterprise. 2) It is the biggest reason why 15 million Filipinos remain dirt poor.

With the DPWH out of the picture, the government should simply auction its flood control projects via PPP—public-private partnership style. The government designs the flood project, estimates its cost, determines its completion period and then offers it to bidders. The one who quotes the best price wins the contract and the government pays the winner on a cost-plus basis.

In the past 15 years, according to Sen. Panfilo Lacson, P1 trillion of the P2 trillion allotted for flood control was stolen. That's 1,000 billion pesos down the drain. And into the pockets of senators, congressmen, contractors, DPWH officials, audit people and other greedy government people.

The P1 trillion lost to corruption could have rescued at least five million families from poverty—the four of every 10 Filipinos who don't earn $3 a day, the World Bank measure of poverty. The P1 trillion is more than double the P440 billion DepEd Secretary Sonny Angara needs to build 165,000 classrooms to improve quality of education of our young, our best capital.

Four things thus happen, without the DPWH: we curb corruption, we control floods, we reduce poverty and we make our young more useful and intelligent. The exact formula for a progressive country.