The DPWH’s latest move misses the point entirely
The Department of Public Works and Highways announced this week that it’s moving to blacklist up to 60 contractors involved in what Malacañang is calling “anomalous flood control and infrastructure projects.” Palace Press Officer Claire Castro revealed that the Philippine Contractors Accreditation Board is already processing 16 contractors for blacklisting, with four having their licenses revoked.
On the surface, this sounds like accountability. The government finally getting tough on corruption. Justice being served.
Except it’s not. It’s theater.
We’re talking about the biggest corruption scandal in the Marcos Jr. administration, possibly the biggest in Philippine history. An estimated ₱118.5 billion ($2 billion) in flood control funds vanished into thin air over just two years. Ghost projects that were funded but never built. Substandard construction that collapsed with the first heavy rain. Kickbacks as high as 25%, leaving only 30-40% of budgets for actual work, according to Senator Erwin Tulfo.
And the government’s response? Blacklist some contractors and call it a day.
That’s like arresting the getaway driver and declaring the bank heist solved.
The Real Problem Isn’t the Contractors
Don’t get me wrong. These contractors deserve everything coming to them. Sally Santos of Syms Construction casually admitted in a Senate hearing to withdrawing ₱457 million in cash. Just like that. No shame, no hesitation.
But Santos and her ilk are symptoms, not the disease.
The disease is a procurement system so broken that just 15 out of 2,409 accredited contractors captured ₱100 billion worth of projects. That’s 18% of the entire ₱545.6 billion flood mitigation budget from 2022 to 2025 going to 0.6% of contractors.
How does that happen without someone in government greasing the wheels?
The disease is a Philippine Contractors Accreditation Board that allegedly gave some contractors the highest accreditation despite inadequate capital, according to DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon himself. The very agency supposed to ensure contractor competency was part of the scam.
The disease is 67 members of Congress who were public works contractors for their own state-funded projects in 2022. You read that right. They literally awarded themselves government contracts.
Where Are the Arrests That Matter?
President Marcos vowed in September to jail at least 37 congressmen and officials by Christmas. As of early February, only seven people have been thrown behind bars. That’s 18% of his promise. Ironically, the same percentage of the budget that 15 contractors monopolized.
Meanwhile, the president’s own cousin, House Speaker Martin Romualdez, allegedly received ₱1.68 billion in kickbacks according to testimony from former Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co. Romualdez is still Speaker. Still wielding enormous power. Still untouched.
Former DPWH officials implicated Mark Villar, son of one of the richest families in the country, in running a kickback scheme. No charges filed.
Three senators—Jinggoy Estrada, Joel Villanueva, and Francis Escudero—are under immigration lookout orders. Not arrested. Not charged. Just… being watched.
This is what accountability looks like in the Philippines. We go after the small fish and announce victory while the sharks continue feeding.
The Cost in Human Lives
Here’s what makes this scandal truly obscene: People died because of it.
Ace Aguirre of Cotcot, Cebu watched his living room furniture float during Typhoon Kalmaegi in November. His daughter, who can’t swim, perched on a pillar as water gushed by inches from her feet. “I don’t know how we were able to survive,” he told CNN.
The Philippines is the world’s most disaster-prone country. We desperately need functioning flood control infrastructure. Instead, we got ghost projects and pocketed funds.
This wasn’t just theft. It was negligent homicide on a massive scale.
Theater of Accountability
So no, blacklisting 60 contractors doesn’t impress me.
You want to show you’re serious about accountability? Here’s what needs to happen:
Arrest the lawmakers. Not immigration lookout orders. Actual arrests. If you have evidence that members of Congress stole billions, put them in handcuffs. The optics of seeing powerful politicians in orange jumpsuits would do more for deterrence than blacklisting a hundred contractors.
Dismantle the PCAB and rebuild it. Any accreditation agency that gave top ratings to undercapitalized shell companies is either incompetent or complicit. Either way, it needs to go.
Release the names. Malacañang refused to identify which contractors are being blacklisted. Why? Transparency isn’t a courtesy. It’s a requirement. The public has a right to know exactly who stole their money.
Recover the money. The government has frozen ₱20.3 billion in assets and secured some surrenders, but that’s less than 20% of the estimated losses. Where’s the rest? Follow the money. Seize properties. Liquidate luxury cars. Make these people poor again.
Ban politician-contractors permanently. Any current or former lawmaker who owned a construction company should be barred from government contracts for life. No exceptions. This conflict of interest is so obvious it hurts.
Why I Don’t Trust This
Palace Press Officer Claire Castro assured everyone that blacklisting contractors “will not affect the continuous implementation of infrastructure projects in the country because there are still many good contractors.”
That line tells you everything. The government is more worried about optics and project continuity than actual accountability.
If this were a genuine anti-corruption drive, the focus would be on rooting out systemic rot, not ensuring business as usual.
DPWH Secretary Dizon says they’ll look beyond company names to investigate the real owners, preventing blacklisted contractors from re-registering under new identities. Great. That should have been standard practice from day one.
The fact that they’re announcing it like it’s innovative tells you how broken the system really is.
The Bigger Picture
This scandal cost the Philippine stock market ₱1.7 trillion ($29 billion) in market cap when it broke in October. Foreign investors are spooked. International lenders are watching. Climate financing could dry up because multilateral institutions won’t fund projects in countries where money disappears.
The economic damage from lost investor confidence will dwarf even the billions stolen.
And yet the government’s response remains calibrated for minimal disruption to the political class.
What Happens Next
I expect more announcements. More investigations. More promises.
I expect a handful of contractors to serve as sacrificial lambs while the real architects of this scheme continue their careers in government.
I expect President Marcos to continue positioning himself as an anti-corruption crusader even as people around him—including family members—face credible allegations.
And I expect the Philippine public to eventually move on to the next scandal, because we always do.
But maybe this time can be different. The protests that started in September continue. 90% of Filipinos believe officials colluded to steal flood control funds, according to polls. That’s not cynicism. That’s a consensus.
People are angry. And they should be.
The question is whether that anger translates into sustained pressure for real reform, or whether it dissipates into resignation.
I’m betting on the latter. But I’d love to be wrong.
Sixty contractors blacklisted. Congratulations, we’ve treated the symptom while the cancer metastasizes.
Wake me up when we start arresting senators.
Gerald Lacuarta is a former investigative reporter for the Philippine Daily Inquirer and publisher of PhilReport.com. He writes about technology, governance, and the abuse of power. You can reach him at [email protected].