Since when has Taguig been located in Leyte?
Sen. Panfilo “Ping” M. Lacson directed this question Sunday at Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Vince Dizon as he cited a finding in the agency’s own report that contradicts his claim that there are no ghost projects in Taguig.
In posts on his X account, Lacson cited a report on a Taguig project with Contract ID 220B0106, whose geotagged photographs attached to its billing reports contained coordinates “located approximately 600 kilometers away in LEYTE PROVINCE” and whose contractor is a firm owned by the Discayas.
“Sec. Vince Dizon, please explain how this finding of your own team should not be flagged as a ghost project in Taguig. (Since when has Taguig been located in Leyte?)” Lacson said.
The finding Lacson cited states:
“Geotagged Photographs attached to Billing Reports contained coordinates pointing outside verified project limits. (e.g. metadata of Contract ID 220B0106 reflected coordinates located approximately 600 kilometers away in LEYTE PROVINCE.)”
Lacson also highlighted the project’s connection to St. Timothy Construction, a company owned by the Discayas, who have been linked to controversial flood control projects.
“To further highlight the red flag, Discaya’s St Timothy ang contractor (St. Timothy Construction is the contractor). What do you say about this, Sec?” he said.
Lacson also cited the project’s financial billing documents, which show that a 15% advance payment of ₱13,738,755.81 was released on June 23, 2022, with all the attached billing photographs bearing coordinates in Tacloban City, Leyte.
The first partial billing, amounting to ₱37.162 million, was dated July 27, 2022, but had no image attached. The second partial billing, amounting to ₱19.174 million and dated September 12, 2022, had attached images with no coordinates.
The third partial billing, amounting to ₱21.202 million and dated September 22, 2022, likewise had no coordinates in its attached images. The fourth and final billing, amounting to ₱18.960 million and dated February 22, 2023, also had attached images without coordinates.
Lacson noted that the DPWH inspection report likewise found that the coordinates indicated in the geotagged photographs attached to the Progress Billing and Final Billing “do not correspond with the actual project site verified during the inspection.”
On Saturday, Lacson said Dizon’s claim the previous day that there are no ghost projects in Taguig City appeared to contradict findings in the DPWH’s own site inspection reports.
Dizon made the claim during Friday’s subcommittee hearing on the DPWH’s proposed 2027 budget, after Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano asked him whether there were ghost projects in Taguig, his bailiwick.
Lacson expressed sympathy for the DPWH’s site inspection engineers after their own boss contradicted their findings, adding Dizon’s memory may have been clouded by the “pressure” of work as the DPWH had turned over to Lacson’s Senate office the records of projects that were “nonexistent but reported as completed.”
He also cited the DPWH’s data stemming from its “Analysis of Potential Similar Billing Photographs from 2017-2025 of Taguig projects using AI-Based Image Similarity Detection Approach.” Of 15,523 images processed by the AI system, 1,079 pairs of images were flagged for high visual similarity.
Lacson and his team had submitted to the Office of the Ombudsman earlier at least 45 case studies detailing “systemic anomalies” in flood control infrastructure projects in Taguig. The Ombudsman has since launched a fact-finding investigation on the matter. #
