Senator Ping Lacson thanked Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Vince Dizon for clarifying that flood control projects in Taguig City remain under investigation for alleged irregularities, even as he cautioned anew against prematurely concluding that there are no ghost projects.
Lacson was referring to Dizon’s clarification that the investigation into some projects in Taguig is still ongoing, and that the irregularities initially identified remain subject to further validation.
“Thank you, Sec. Vince, for the clarification. I agree that preliminary inspection findings on several questionable flood control projects in Taguig—such as those on St. Timothy’s slope protection project—do not automatically prove a project was ‘ghosted,’ but we also cannot definitively conclude that no ‘ghost projects’ exist,” the veteran legislator said on X.
“Flood control projects in Taguig City remain under investigation for alleged irregularities.”
Earlier Monday, Dizon clarified that flood control projects in Taguig City remain under investigation for alleged irregularities—days after he categorically said before a Senate subcommittee hearing tackling the DPWH’s proposed 2027 budget that there were no ghost projects in Taguig.
Dizon said the DPWH has flagged several projects in Taguig and submitted an initial report to the Office of the Ombudsman, “for further validation”. The public works chief said they are waiting for the “final report and final action” of the Ombudsman.
The clarification came after the seasoned lawmaker cited findings in the DPWH’s own site inspection reports that appeared inconsistent with Dizon’s earlier statement.
The senator said the reports, submitted by personnel from the DPWH Bureaus of Maintenance, Quality and Safety, Construction, and Research and Standards, showed that several flood control projects in Taguig had been declared completed but their physical presence on site could not be validated by inspection teams for various reasons.
In some areas, he said inspection teams could not verify potentially anomalous projects because they were covered up by newer projects.
Lacson also cited the DPWH’s analysis of potentially similar billing photographs from Taguig projects from 2017 to 2025. Of 15,523 images processed using an AI-based image similarity detection system, 1,079 pairs were flagged for high visual similarity, involving 180 unique contracts.
Over the weekend, Lacson disclosed details of a “Slope Protection along Taguig River Project” (Contract ID 220B0106), whose geotagged photos attached to its billing reports contained coordinates pointing to Leyte province, some 600 km away from Taguig.
Records on the project showed three locations in Tacloban City reflected in the geotagged photographs. They also showed that the DPWH paid St. Timothy Construction Corp., which is owned by the Discaya family, some P96.5 million for the project.
“The St. Timothy Construction project was not an isolated case but the most brazen and telling so far among some 68 projects where red flags had been identified by DPWH inspection teams.”
He noted that the St. Timothy Construction project was not an isolated case but the most “brazen and telling” so far among some 68 projects where red flags had been identified by DPWH inspection teams.
Earlier, Lacson and his team formally submitted to the Office of the Ombudsman at least 45 case studies backed by official documents detailing what they described as “systemic anomalies” in flood control infrastructure projects in Taguig. The Ombudsman subsequently launched a fact-finding investigation into the allegations.
Lacson and his team have also submitted to the Ombudsman evidence they have gathered concerning alleged illegal reclamation and infrastructure projects on the Taguig City side of Laguna Lake.
Also, Lacson warned Dizon that any attempt to cover up the anomalies in infrastructure projects in Taguig may expose those involved to possible criminal liability.