As of yesterday, portions of Bulacan remained flooded despite the ongoing dry spell from El Niño. The province became ground zero for the flood control and budget corruption scandal.
Full accountability in the scandal is still a long way off, with many more public officials and their cohorts in the private sector expected to face criminal indictment.
In the meantime, continuing probes are confirming the worst suspicions, that corruption involving public works projects is widespread and systematic.
Across the country, key engineers of the Department of Public Works and Highways are being suspended or dismissed in connection with the corruption scandal. The purge is good news for accountability, but the DPWH must also get public works projects going.
Since last year, the flood control and budget mess has frozen infrastructure projects. The slowdown in public spending has been a major factor in the slump in economic growth.
Yesterday, the Philippine Statistics Authority reported that this year’s third-quarter gross domestic product growth further slowed to 2.1 percent – the weakest quarterly performance since the first quarter of 2021, at the height of the COVID pandemic.
Apart from the persistently high fuel and food prices, the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector was a key driver of the slowdown, contracting by 4.8 percent due to tropical cyclones, monsoon rains and heavy flooding.
Business confidence is down, with investors monitoring the progress of ongoing corruption probes particularly in the DPWH.
At the rate its top engineers are being purged, the DPWH might run out of these officials who perform critical roles in the scandal-plagued agency.
Yesterday, the DPHW announced that four more district engineers had been relieved over allegations of corruption, collection of kickbacks and submission of fake project readiness documents.
The four are Hermon Ines of the 1st District Engineering Office in Tarlac, Clifton Valencerina of the 2nd DEO in Apayao, Amron Mitmug of the 2nd DEO in Lanao del Norte and Saidale Mitmug of the 3rd DEO in Cotabato.
As the purge of both personnel and questionable projects continues, the DPWH must ensure that people of competence and integrity are taking over those who have been sacked. If needed, the DPWH should tap foreign monitors and experts to speed up its internal cleansing and the revival of the battered construction industry.
The industry has been devastated by the impact of the flood control mess, and its recovery depends in large part on the credibility and efficiency of the DPWH cleanup.