A fresh generation of professional civil servants will have to overhaul a Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) that has become rotten due to boundless greed, Senate President Pro Tempore Ping Lacson said.
Lacson said DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon may check the private sector for licensed civil engineers who bring with them a culture of accountability and integrity instead of corruption.
“Assuming all DPWH officials submitted their courtesy resignations, Sec. Vince may start hiring licensed civil engineers from the private sector, still untainted by corruption and trained by corporate best practices; then create a new generation of professional civil servants,” the veteran legislator said in a post on X.
One of Dizon’s first acts after assuming the top DPWH post was to order the courtesy resignation of all DPWH officials, to clean up the agency.
“More than P1.9 trillion had been appropriated to the DPWH alone for flood control projects since 2011, yet the flooding problem persists.”
The DPWH is at the center of a major controversy involving substandard and ghost flood control projects. The seasoned lawmaker noted that more than P1.9 trillion had been appropriated to the DPWH alone for flood control projects since 2011, yet the flooding problem persists.
In privilege speeches last Aug. 20 and Sept. 9, the senator detailed the “boundless greed” and corruption among DPWH engineers, some of whom gamble away hundreds of millions of pesos of taxpayers’ money in casinos.
Worse, he noted new moneymaking schemes by junior personnel of the DPWH, including additional requirements priced at thousands of pesos per page – on top of the regular commissions and “obligations” contractors are made to pay.
“Boundless greed. Rotten at the top, rotten at the bottom.”
“Boundless greed. Rotten at the top, rotten at the bottom. Learning fast from their superiors, even official and ‘invented’ documents have become sources of ill-gotten income at the lower echelons of the DPWH’s district engineering offices,” Lacson concluded.
