TURNING POINT: Insertion: The Headspring of Corruption

NAAWAN, Misamis Oriental (MindaNews / 10 September) – The couple Pacifico F. Dizcaya II and Cazarah Rowena Dizcaya, whose contracting firms, Apha and Omega General Contractor and Development Corporation and St. Timothy Construction Corporation, were the top two of the 15 firms that collared most of the government flood control projects named by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., testified in the Senate blue ribbon committee that some lawmakers and officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways have compelled them to submit and play by the rules of the corrupt system. They were forced to give a handsome amount to them to obtain construction projects from the government.

They earned mucho from the insertion projects of members of the House. The insertion story begins with the finalization of the National Expenditure Program (NEP) into the General Appropriation Act (GAA) by the bicameral appropriations committee and ultimately by a core committee composed of the Chair of the House appropriations committee, then Rep. Zaldy Co,  the majority and minority floor leaders, and the Speaker of the House, Martin Romualdez. Here, insertions in the NEP are accordingly made. For instance, the flood control project of Oriental Mindoro, which in the NEP for flood control project was only P2.17 billion, ballooned to P30 billion upon a budget insertion of P17 billion.

Notwithstanding huge funds in the hands of the DPWH, the province remains submerged in flood waters. Why?

 Accordingly, after the distribution of kickbacks down the line from the lawmaker insertion proponent, Speaker of the House, and those responsible to make it to the GAA, some focal personnel at the Department of Budget and Management, and the hierarchy of decision makers at the DPWH, the remaining amount for the private contractor to implement the project is only 50% of the budget reflected in the GAA. This results in substandard constructions, unfinished projects, or non-existing projects at all – the so-called ghost projects. The commitment or kickback of the budget insertion proponent is as high as 30 percent of the project cost.

 The ghost phenomenon occurs when the DPWH supervising engineer is bribed handsomely enough by the contractor for him to declare the project is already finished, even if no single activity has been done on the site. And the COA takes a blind eye and says nothing, being part and parcel of the corruption network.

In the Senate hearing last August, then DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan admitted that ghost flood control projects, indeed, existed in the towns of Bulacan, namely, Calumpit, Malolos, and Hagonoy.

Because the flood of corruption begins and is embedded in the body that controls the purse, it is self-serving, uncalled for, and nauseating for it to investigate itself. An independent body ought to do it. PBBM needs to constitute the body soonest possible while the iron, so to speak, is still hot.

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. William R. Adan, Ph.D., is retired professor and former chancellor of Mindanao State University at Naawan, Misamis Oriental.)