By Diego Morra
There is no sense investigating anomalies that swamp more than 10,000 flood control projects if congressmen and senators are given a pass, and when Malacanang itself is immediately cleared of complicity with the entire miasmic mess. “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” as the Roman poet Juvenal wrote. Who will guard the guardians? Not the fox for the henhouse and certainly not the butchers in a pig pen.
With the P1.9 trillio in taxpayer money misspent for thousands of flood control projects that never mitigated devastating floods from 2011 to 2025, an honest-to-goodness inquiry must be conducted, not by the Senate or the House of Representatives, but by the sovereign people, whether it be a truly independent commission or a committee comprised of citizens with no ties, kinship or fraternal links to the legislative and executive branches. Forsooth, anything less would be pandering not to the better angels of our nature, but to the worst interest of those who plundered the money, corrupted the bureaucracy, and covered up the conspiracy.
Thus, it is immoral, unjust and completely out of whack if any inquiry were to absolve Sen. Mark Villar y Aguilar of any responsibility for bulk of the flood control projects that were not completed but were fully-paid, those that were built using substandard materials and those that were not built at all from 2016 to 2022, when Villar sat as secretary of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) even if he was conversant with engineering work. He honed his skills in a business school in Chicago after earning his bachelor’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania, where the worst corporate raiders and leveraged buyout (LBO) in American business are trained to profit from other people’s money (OPM.)
From July 2022 until May 2025, DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan disclosed that 9,856 flood control projects were completed, with 5,700 ongoing, for a total of 15,556 under the administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr., meaning that the projects designed, vetted and awarded during the unlamented Rodrigo Duterte administration were pursued under the current dispensation. The DPWH and the Senate spoke glowingly of Villar for “reforming” the department and “completing, rehabilitating and improving quality infrastructure all over the counry, claiming to have realized the “Golden Age of Infrastructure” through the “Build, Build, Build” Program, which generated more than 6-million jobs from 2016 to 2021. Purportedly, he addressed “right of way” (ROW) issues, blacklisted contractors, abided by the Procurement Law (Republic Act No. 9184) in conducting post qualification of bidders with delayed contracts and others.
Surely, the 15 contractors tagged as having cornered 20% of the P500-billion budget of all flood control projects could not have operated only from July 2022 onwards. They have been operating at the DPWH for decades and Mark Villar should have put his foot down on their anomalous transactions, their dubious record in project implementation and the fat commissions they have been paying lawmakers. However, only one contractor was blacklisted by DPWH, to the consternation of the citizens who have been monitoring their work. It doesn’t prove the sterling record of Mark Villar as the guy who shepherded the “Golden Age of Infrastructure.” So, pray tell us, what was the record of Mark Villar as DPWH secretary? During his incumbency, the department mysteriously took over the supervision of local water districts nationwide, a strange thing that hosed down the mandate of the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) and delivered it to Villar. The Villars backed the Dutertes to the hilt, funneling millions to the Duterte campaign in 2016 and Mark Villar was immediately sent to head DPWH.
Technically, officers of local water districts are appointed by local government units (LGUs), but this, too, was rendered meaningless when the same water districts ultimately cut one-sided “joint ventures” with Primewater Infrastructure Corp., a subsidiary of Prime Asset Ventures that is owned by the Villar family. Primewater was incorporated in 2006 and languished for nine years before it bagged seven deal in 2015 and cut 15 contracts with local water districts the following year. The Golden Age of Primewater started when Mark Villar was appointed DPWH secretary in 2016, with the company winning 22 more water districts in 2017, followed by 45 ventures in 2018, another 62 the succeeding year, 68 in 2020, 69 in 2021 and 75 in 2022, Duterte’s final year. This year, Primewater also signed 77 joint ventures with water districts. All told, Primewater cornered 440 out of the country’s 584 water districts for a whopping 75.34% control of the water resource in areas not served by Manila Water and Maynilad.
With the water districts covered by Primewater complaining about chronic water supply shortage, the failure to make the water safe, the increase in water tariffs and the inability to provide septage facilities all militated against the Villar company. Despite this universal revulsion, former Sen. Cynthia Villar publicly claimed that Primewater wasn’t earning but the Villars catergorically did not say they would sell the subsidiary, or withdraw from their 440 joint ventures nationwide. Moreover, Mark Villar denied any role in crafting and approving the joint ventures with water districts, tossing the responsibility to his underlings at the DPWH. He must be a total stranger to common sense. Any graduate of the Universidad de Azcarraga or the University of Bangkusay would slam this UPenn grad for advancing such a horrific excuse.
The Marcos Jr. administration, to be true to its pledge to root out corruption, must only scrap the 440 Primewater joint ventures with local water districts but ban the company from bidding for other projects like the Cavite bulk water project that calls for impounding the water from 18 rivers in the province and distributing it to various cities and towns, with the awardee paying a low tariff to the National Irrigation Administration (NIA.) With its dismal record in Bulacan, Cavite and hundreds of water districts, Primewater should be prohibited from doing business with LWUA and other government agencies. With the Villars proving to be a klutz in managing the power supply of Siquijor, it must also be kicked out of the energy generation, transmission distribution business. Those who abscond with the people’s money while rendering the worst type of service deserve to be kept out of utilities.
