Dizon’s ax first to fall on DPWH exec, 2 Bulacan contractors
Secretary Vince Dizon on Thursday said he would impose a lifetime ban on two contractors from the government’s public works for their involvement in alleged ghost projects as he dismissed the former chief of the Bulacan first district engineering office where the “nonexistent” flood mitigation works were located.
Dizon also ordered the legal division of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to recommend plunder charges to the Office of the Ombudsman against former Bulacan first district head Henry Alcantara, his successor, Brice Ericson Hernandez, and Jaypee Mendoza, former chief of the district’s construction section.
He said that once banned, Wawao Builders and SYMS Construction and Trading would no longer be allowed to participate in any public works project of the DPWH.
Dizon’s actions came just days after he replaced Public Works Secretary Manuel Bonoan following an order by President Marcos to investigate corruption-tainted sloppy or ghost flood control projects around the country that cost billions of pesos.
“This is obviously criminal,” Dizon told reporters after inspecting one of the so-called ghost projects in Plaridel, Bulacan. “This is plunder, almost P100 million stolen.”
Under Republic Act No. 7080, or the Anti-Plunder Act, public officers commit plunder by amassing ill-gotten wealth amounting to at least P50 million through a combination or a series of criminal acts. Private persons can also be charged with plunder if they had conspired with the public officers. The penalty for the crime is life imprisonment.
Dizon said the lifetime blacklisting of Wawao and SYMS would be applied to their affiliates. Wawao and SYMS, both single proprietorships, will also be recommended for criminal charges in the Department of Justice (DOJ), he said.
‘Automatic’ ban
Those involved in ghost flood control projects will have to face an “automatic perpetual ban” from public works projects of the DPWH, he said.
In Plaridel, a sloping river protection wall project by Wawao that was supposed to be taller than a person on top of an embankment was reported to have been 100 percent completed in June 2024.
When they inspected the site in Barangay Sipat, Dizon and other officials and reporters only saw a small portion of the supposed 150-meter-long concrete wall, fresh excavations and an idle backhoe truck.
Barangay Chair Oscar Gabriel told Dizon that the work there began only three weeks earlier, around the time when the President disclosed that 15 of more than 2,000 contractors were awarded 18 percent, or about P100 billion, of the P545-billion flood control projects nationwide from 2022 to 2025.
“I call this an attempt to resurrect the dead,” Dizon said. “Perhaps, three weeks ago, when this issue became hot and the Senate and Congress started their investigations, and the President was angered, they tried to resurrect the dead. This was gone. This is clearly a ghost project.”
‘Animals’ to be jailed
According to a “project briefer” prepared by the First District Engineering Office of Bulacan, the “notice to proceed” for the P96.5-million project was given in March 2024 and the “actual accomplishment” was June 11, 2024. Wawao was fully paid a month later.
“The ones behind this project are animals. They are not humans to do this to our fellow Filipinos,” the DPWH chief said. “And believe me, all the animals behind this will be jailed.”
“The President has repeatedly said—and this was his clear marching orders to me—that we must not allow this to happen anymore, and to hold people who have done this to account,” he added.
Arevalo, Santos
Wawao owner Mark Allan Arevalo was called last Monday to a Senate inquiry on flood control projects but the 37-year-old businessman invoked his right against self-incrimination when he was asked by Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva if he had handled ghost projects.
SYMS, owned by sole proprietor Sally Santos of Malolos, Bulacan, was the supposed builder of the alleged “ghost” river wall in Barangay Piel, Baliwag City, which the President inspected on Aug. 20.
The President found the construction site of the P55.73-million flood mitigation project abandoned, though it was reported to have been completed on June 30, 2025.
According to Dizon, the DPWH will also file criminal complaints against the people behind Wawao and SYMS in the DOJ. They will include those who were “clearly dummies and the real owners or the beneficial owners,” he said.
Last Bonoan report
Malacañang welcomed Dizon’s pronouncements.
“This action of the agency is in line with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s call for swift action, the filing of cases, and holding accountable those behind the anomalous projects,” Palace press officer Claire Castro said in a briefing.
When he formally stepped down last Tuesday, Bonoan told reporters that the DPWH’s own investigation had so far found 15 “nonexistent” or “missing” projects from 1,600 that had been looked into, out of a total of 9,856 across the country.
Bonoan submitted the documents from his investigation to Dizon, saying these were subject to validation to confirm that these were indeed “ghost” projects.
According to Bonoan, “most” of the 15 were located in the jurisdiction of the Bulacan First District Engineering Office, while the rest were “scattered” in other regions.
Before he left office, Bonoan relieved Alcantara, a confessed casino aficionado, Brice and other officials of the Bulacan’s first district engineering office.
The Commission on Audit has deployed its own teams to inspect all flood control projects in Bulacan as part of an ongoing fraud audit covering more than three years of public works spending in the province. —WITH A REPORT FROM CARMELA REYES-ESTROPE
