Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson on Wednesday, September 3 said that letting the culprits in the anomalous flood projects go unpunished is worse than the country experiencing losing some P118.5-billion worth of economic loss.

Lacson was referring to the estimates cited by Department of Finance (DOF) Secretary Ralph Recto who indicated that the ghost flood control projects that is now subject of congressional investigation, had cost the economy P118.5  billion or the equivalent of up to 266,000 jobs.

During the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) briefing on Tuesday on the proposed P6.793-trillion 2026 national budget, Recto bared that ghost flood control projects cost the Philippine economy between P42.3 billion and P118.5 billion from 2023 to 2025.

“With the DOF’s mind-boggling estimated economic loss of P118.5 billion due to 'ghost' flood control projects, if those responsible go unpunished, the government may be committing a bigger crime against the Filipino people," Lacson said in a post on X.

https://x.com/iampinglacson/status/1963060596741374413

Recto said that while raising revenues is “no joke,” it is disappointing that the revenues do not go to the projects that will benefit Filipinos.

Lacson, who has been exposing corruption in government since he became a senator, earlier bared that more than P1.9 trillion had been appropriated to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) alone from 2011 to 2025. Yet, according to the senator, floods continue to plague Filipinos.

In a privilege speech last August 20, Lacson stressed the need to ensure that there is certainty of punishment against those involved - including prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment.

“If no one is punished accordingly, this will encourage many to engage in corruption because they can get away with it,” he said.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, meanwhile, urged the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to change the preparation of the National Expenditure Program (NEP) and tighten its scrutiny of questionable projects.

During the DBCC briefing, the Senate Committee on Finance chief noted how the DBM skipped thorough scrutiny of DPWH projects, due to their “special nature.”

This “special nature”, Gatchalian lamented, became a “source of corruption.”

“There wasn’t even a feasibility study, and the reason they provided round numbers in line items is because there is no detailed engineering design because if there is, it will give you the exact cost of each project,” Gatchalian said.

He further said the “red flags”, which includes duplicate projects with identical costs and items from the 2025 budget that resurfaced in the 2026 NEP, could have prevented anomalous infrastructure projects had the DBM thoroughly reviewed DPWH’s proposals.