SEN. Panfilo Lacson on Wednesday flagged at least two suspected ghost infrastructure projects in Taguig City, the political bailiwick of Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano.
Lacson said that initial findings by his team showed a staggering number of slope protection and drainage projects — most of them costing P100 million each — with a combined value of some P2.085 billion.
“We have documented at least two case studies so far. Too many P100M slope protection and drainage projects totaling P2.085B out of the P6.79 billion insertions under the 2025 GAA (General Appropriations Act),” Lacson said in a social media post.
“There is no turning back!” the senator added.
Earlier, Lacson said their initial findings included projects involving firms owned by the Discayas but implemented by another contractor under a 5-percent royalty scheme, and other similar projects contracted to Topnotch Catalyst Builders.
Topnotch Builders was included among the top 15 flood control project contractors announced by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. last year.
The projects including those involving Discaya-owned firms dated back to 2019 and 2020, when Cayetano was House speaker.
Lacson said that some of the defective projects had overlapping spans that appeared to allow room for kickbacks; others were subjected to attempts to “repair” some of the ghost projects.
With the help of informants and witnesses, the senator said he continued to gather documentary and testimonial evidence on Cayetano’s P6.79 billion in budget insertions and 25-percent kickbacks in slope protection and other infrastructure projects.
He added that of the P6.79-billion budget insertions under the 2025 GAA, 68 out of the 70 projects had been implemented — while two projects involving P75 million remained unreleased or unobligated.
“He (Cayetano) asked for it, I’ll give it to him. I will pursue this to its logical conclusion. I will not ‘invent’ or ‘fabricate’ evidence but because of his attack on my integrity, I will exert extra effort to find those pieces of evidence, documentary or testimonial,” Lacson said.
Cayetano has denied the allegations.
“I can also assure you that there are no ghost flood control projects in Taguig, to the best of my knowledge. Inspections have been conducted several times,” Cayetano said in a Facebook Live broadcast.
He also called for an investigation into flood control projects in other cities, not just Taguig, challenging Lacson to show that he was not singling out one individual.
“I’m not saying there are problems in those cities. What I’m saying is that Senator Lacson should show that he is not singling out just one person,” Cayetano said.
“How did we end up there? Just because you don’t like someone, you already want to put them in jail?” he added.
Cayetano set off Lacson by publicly questioning the integrity of Lacson’s statement of assets, liabilities and net worth, insinuating during a broadcast that Lacson’s reported wealth had improperly multiplied. Lacson vowed to redouble his efforts to find and document corruption involving Cayetano.
