MANILA, Philippines — Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano questioned the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) over the verification of allegedly ghost flood-control projects, saying only 10 of around 400 projects initially flagged as nonexistent had been verified.
Cayetano said the figures could mean the initial estimate was wrong, the remaining projects had been covered up, or that the truth lies somewhere in between.
“If there were initially 400 ghost projects and only 10 have been verified, what does that mean?” Cayetano said in a Facebook livestream.
“Either what was said before—that there were 400—was really wrong and people were just angered, or the 390 have been covered up, or somewhere in between,” he added.
Cayetano called on the DPWH to provide a clear accounting of flood-control projects in every congressional district, including the total number of projects, those already verified and those found to be ghost projects.
He said establishing which projects were nonexistent should be the government’s first priority in addressing anomalies in the flood-control program.
“That’s why the first thing we are asking the DPWH to solve is the ghost projects,” he said.
