SEN. Panfilo Lacson on Sunday asked Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon to explain why billing photographs for a Taguig project carried geotagged coordinates pointing to Leyte.
In a social media post, Lacson cited a Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) inspection report on Contract ID 220B0106, which found that geotagged photographs attached to billing reports contained coordinates outside the verified project limits.
The report said the contract metadata reflected coordinates approximately 600 kilometers away in Leyte province.
“Sec[retary] Vince Dizon, please explain how this finding of your own team should not be flagged as a ghost project in Taguig. Since when has Taguig been located in Leyte?” Lacson said.
Lacson also flagged St. Timothy Construction, the project contractor, which is owned by the Discaya family, whose companies have been linked to scandal-laden flood control projects.
“To further highlight the red flag, Discaya’s St. Timothy is the contractor. What do you say about this, Sec[retary]?” he said.
The project received a 15-percent advance payment of P13.74 million on June 23, 2022, Lacson said, with the attached photographs bearing coordinates in Tacloban City, Leyte.
The first partial billing, worth P37.162 million and dated July 27, 2022, had no image attached. The second billing, worth P19.174 million and dated Sept. 12, 2022, had photographs without coordinates.
The third billing of P21.202 million and dated Sept. 22, 2022, also had photographs without coordinates. The fourth and final billing of P18.960 million, dated Feb. 22, 2023, also contained photographs without coordinates.
Lacson said the DPWH inspection report found that the coordinates in the geotagged photographs attached to the progress and final billings “do not correspond with the actual project site verified during the inspection.” During Friday’s Senate subcommittee hearing on the DPWH’s proposed 2027 budget, Dizon said there were no ghost projects in Taguig.
Dizon made the statement after Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano asked whether ghost projects had been found in the city.
Lacson said Dizon’s claim appeared to contradict findings in the DPWH’s own inspection reports.
He also said Dizon’s recollection may have been affected by the “pressure” of work, noting that the DPWH had turned over to his Senate office records of projects that were “nonexistent but reported as completed.” Lacson further cited the DPWH’s “Analysis of Potential Similar Billing Photographs from 2017–2025 of Taguig projects using AI-Based Image Similarity Detection Approach.” Of the 15,523 images processed by the AI system, 1,079 pairs were flagged for high visual similarity, he said.
Lacson and his team have submitted at least 45 case studies to the Office of the Ombudsman detailing alleged “systemic anomalies” in flood control infrastructure projects in Taguig. The Ombudsman has launched a fact-finding investigation.
