‘Check up on your LGU and see if those you elected into office are indeed your representatives, or your representa-thieves.’
I turned 63 yesterday and was overwhelmed by the kind greetings from family members (my two brothers, GJ and RV, my sister-in-law Diana, my niece Joanna, my maternal aunt Zenaida and cousins) and a host of former and present colleagues as well as classmates from UP and friends. I am particularly thankful to my former boss, retired NAC chairman Gerard Brimo, as it was his greetings that I first espied around 3 a.m. when I got up thinking I was going to do my morning 5k HIIT around BGC, only to realize I was not in BGC!
I am grateful for the wishes of good health, not so sure about living as long as JPE, but hopeful that my libido keeps up with the times. As to those who asked if I had any special wish for my birthday, I realized it was simple: that for my birthday, I wish God would grant the birthday wish of Kara David.
Mamatay na ang lahat ng corrupt sa Pilipinas.
Seems to me that it will have some significant effect on our population, in particular among the political and bureaucratic elite of the country. The weekly spectacle that the Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearings provide – a spectacle of a web of corruption so deeply ingrained into our institutions and processes – has left many a Filipino wondering if there is any hope for this country, 50 years after the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution. It is beginning to dawn upon many of those who lived through EDSA 1 that the last 50 years have only democratized corruption, not lessened it; and if, in the past, there were jokes that the take of the corrupt was 10%, today we wake up and realize that the loot of yesterday is simply loose change today.
What took 10 or 20 years to steal five decades ago is stolen in 10 to 20 months.
It is only correct that we, ordinary citizens, the tax-paying ones, whether that be through income taxes or sales taxes, are outraged.
But I insist it must be informed outrage.
And that’s why I’ve said several times in my Facebook account that Filipino citizens who are angry must take the time to go to the “Isumbong mo sa Pangulo” website and see for themselves what we are all agog about. Check up on your LGU and see if those you elected into office are indeed your representatives, or your representa-thieves.
Ours must be an informed outrage.
And that’s what I did. I checked the website for flood control projects in Alaminos, Laguna and found nothing. Two thoughts crossed my mind. The first was “Oh, good. Nice to see that no one is trying to make a fast buck at home.” This was immediately followed by, “I guess I’ll kiss my political plans goodbye then and just make money elsewhere.” Of course, I am joking.
But having come up with nothing, I decided to turn my attention to six LGUs and searched the website for whatever information I could find. The six LGUs I chose were Makati, Marikina, Pasig, Mandaluyong, Davao City and Taguig.
Mandaluyong was boring. The website only listed two – yes, two – flood control projects, one awarded to JBP Premium Construction and completed in January 2023, and the other to Dahl Construction and completed in October 2022.
The website listed 47 projects for Marikina, split over 18 contractors, but with two clear favorites, each with 11 contracts: 729 Construction, and LR Tiqui, which appears as No. 14 on the President’s list of top 15 contractors nationwide. I looked at the information and noticed a number of interesting tidbits, like two contracts awarded to LR Tiqui reportedly completed about two weeks apart, but each costing almost exactly the same amount: P94 million. Anyone following the Blue Ribbon committee hearings diligently will recall that in the DPWH, District Engineers apparently have authority to approve projects worth P150 million and below; this is why in many of the questionable projects you’ll see the total project cost divided into two to ensure that the total does not breach the P150 million. So I wondered to myself: was this an example of that?
Pasig’s list had 74 projects, and a number of Discaya firms were noticeable. One of the Discaya firms, Elite General, was awarded two separate projects that were both reported completed on December 26, 2024. The contract price? One was for P47,992,147.31 and the other was for P47,992,369.60. Two other contractors had interesting data attached to their names: 11-16 Construction had two projects, both reported as completed on October 7, 2024, with almost similar project costs –P47,414,632.37 for one, and P47,414,348.60 for the other. Dahl Construction also had two projects completed on the same day (August 5, 2024), worth almost the same contract price – P47,524,455 for one and P47,524,950 for the other.
Davao City had a long list. I counted 142 flood control projects for the city alone, awarded to about 48 contractors. As reported in the news, a favorite contractor was Genesis88, which had over 30 projects. Discaya companies got fewer than ten, and even Alfrego, the contractor company owned by the brother of Sen. Bong Go, only had four contracts by my count in Davao City.
But yes, again, there were curious patterns in some of the contracts. Genesis88 had two projects for the Cataluna creek, both reported completed on August 20, 2023 and both costing exactly the same amount: P96.5 million. It had six projects, all reportedly completed on April 15, 2023, and all six also cost the same amount each: P96.5 million. It also reported completing two projects on December 18, 2022, one costing P65.369 million and the other P65.427 million.
Again, the website reports all these projects as completed. However, as investigations in Bulacan’s First District and elsewhere have shown, there have been projects reported completed to the DPWH – and thus fully paid – that were in fact not completed as reported and some even not started at all. So, what has to be done by the citizens in the different LGUs is to find a way to validate the claimed completed projects because we must know for a fact whether our elected representatives and our bureaucrats are doing their job, or, as many instances are now showing, they are not.
Maybe the LGUs should take the cue from the Mayor of Quezon City, who has ordered an investigation into the 300 or so floodwater control projects that are said to be listed under Quezon City but were never cleared or coordinated with the city engineer’s office.
It is right that what we are hearing is stirring our outrage. But it is also important that we base our outrage on facts.
We must act responsibly even if our politicians and bureaucrats do not do so. Rage we must, but let it be an informed outrage.
