Can you trust Marcos to jail flood works plunderers?

GOTCHA

- JARIUS BONDOC

The fake dike construction in Bulacan was President Bongbong Marcos' project after all. It was one of several imaginary flood works listed in his 2025 budget proposal.

Rep. Terry Ridon discovered this days after Marcos fumed while inspecting causes of floods. News reports claimed that non-existent flood works resulted solely from congressional pork barrels.

For P60 million, the Bulacan river wall should have spanned 220 meters. Oriental Mindoro Gov. Humerlito Dolor exposed four other illusory dikes worth P1 billion in one town alone.

Presumably, Budget Sec. Amenah Pangandaman approved the ghost projects. Public Works Sec. Manuel Bonoan proposed them.

Had Pangandaman done it before as Budget Usec. during the Duterte presidency? To recall, then-budget chief Ben Diokno was accused of inserting P332-billion flood funds in 2016-2019.

Then House majority leader Rolando Andaya said Diokno gave P385 million to a Bicol town that, DPWH engineers attested, never floods. The town mayor was stepfather of Diokno's son-in-law. He disavowed any wrongdoing.

If Marcos aims to solve the P2-trillion flood works scams, he must houseclean. Fire Pangandaman and Bonoan. The latter has let 253 DPWH district engineers collude with crooked constructors in implementing 5,500 fake and faulty flood works since 2022.

Bonoan alibied that the Bulacan ghost work was an isolated case. He ordered district Engineer Henry Alcantara and deputy Brice Ericson Hernandez to explain. Photos of the two have been circulating online wearing multimillion-peso wristwatches.

Other Executive agencies have been remiss. Dean Roberto Galang, PhD, Ateneo de Manila University School of Management, detailed them: