Ghost projects, cartels and kickbacks reveal systemic rot in public works spending
X | Senate | House of Representatives | DPWH
Manila: The Philippines has long grappled with suffocating, systemic graft.
The rot of institutionalised betrayal of public trust represents a deep-rooted, chronic crisis of culture.
The most nauseating evidence?
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) ex-Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo, who pledged to "return" 1 billion in kickbacks, as part of his "restitution" in becoming a state-witness.
But how can a DPWH official take such a staggering amount of Filipino taxpayers' money into his private kitty, while the people for which the money was meant to protect drowned in floodwaters?
It's just the tip of the iceberg.
It begs a blistering question: how on earth does a single public official siphon a staggering billion pesos of taxpayer wealth into his own private coffers, all while the very citizens that funding was meant to protect were left to drown in catastrophic floodwaters?
ORIGINS: Based on 2025 reports, corruption in the Philippines is estimated to drain approximately 700 billion to over 1 trillion ($16.2 billion) annually. This represents roughly 20% of the national budget being lost to graft, inflated contracts, and "ghost" projects. [Source: Grant Thornton]
Amid the deeply rooted "tongpats" culture, and without a system to protect whistleblowers, such an offence will only be repeated.
Bernardo’s billion-peso admission is a...
A NewsGuard audit found that Anthropic’s chatbot Claude is citing Russian state-affiliated sources more often when responding to prompts about pro-Kremlin falsehoods, repeating false claims in 15%...