Ping Lacson says up to ₱180 billion likely lost to ghost flood control projects since 2016

Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo “Ping” Lacson on Wednesday, December 3 warned that more than ₱180 billion may have been lost to ghost flood-control projects dating back to 2016, based on Senate inspections that found over 600 nonexistent projects out of the 10,000 reviewed so far.

Lacson said he and Senate finance committee chairman Sherwin Gatchalian arrived at the estimate by extrapolating their findings to roughly 30,000 flood-control projects implemented within the period.

“We are looking at 30,000 flood control projects since 2016,” he said, noting that the 6 percent ghost-project rate “could mean P180 billion or higher went to ghost projects.”

“Imagine, we likely lost P180 billion to ghost projects and we have not yet started counting our losses to substandard projects,” Lacson added, stressing that the irregularities uncovered by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee represent only a fraction of the total.

He also described as a “pittance” the ₱110 billion “returned” by former Department of Public Works and Highways district engineer Henry Alcantara, who is expected to remit an additional ₱200 million in the coming weeks.

Lacson said the Blue Ribbon Committee remains ready to assist the Independent Commission for Infrastructure, the Department of Justice, and the Office of the Ombudsman should new information surface.

He added that the Senate has begun tightening transparency safeguards in the 2026 budget process, including livestreaming the period of amendments and publicizing all senators’ individual proposals.

Lacson said these measures, along with coordination between Gatchalian and the Senate’s budget monitoring office, aim to shut out “allocables” and other pork-like insertions that he earlier described as making the 2025 budget “corrupt to the core.”