It’s Strike 2 in Bulacan as Marcos flags P56-M ‘ghost’ flood project
President Marcos again visited Bulacan province on Wednesday to check on a multimillion-peso flood control project in Baliwag City, only to find an abandoned construction site that was already declared “completed” in June.
A “very angry” President said he would see if the concerned government officials and private contractors may be held liable for the nonbailable crime of economic sabotage.
“There’s nothing there, not even a single hollow block or cement. There were no equipment. Everything there is a ghost project. There is clearly no work that has been done,” Mr. Marcos said after inspecting a river wall project at Purok 4, Barangay Piel, in Baliwag.
The project cost taxpayers about P55.73 million.
It was the second time this month that the President saw up close a problematic flood control project in Bulacan, one of the most flood-prone provinces in the country.
Last week, in Calumpit town, he saw a river dike already damaged and practically rendered useless due to shabby workmanship less than three years after undergoing “rehabilitation’’ to the tune of P96.4 million.
“More than disappointed, I’m getting very angry,” he said upon seeing the Baliwag project on Wednesday.
Economic sabotage
Mr. Marcos said all officials who authorized and conspired in “ghost” or faulty infrastructure projects would be suspended and charged with graft, malversation of public funds and falsification of public documents.
“This project, for instance, has been reported as ‘completed.’ But we can clearly see that it is not. So immediately, that’s falsification. That’s already a very big violation,” he said.
“And for the big ones, I am thinking very hard if we can file economic sabotage against the personalities behind them,” he added.
Had the flood control projects been properly implemented, the President said, damage to agriculture from the storms that hit the region in July would have been significantly smaller.
Local execs ‘not aware’
Baliwag City officials on Wednesday said they were kept in the dark about the project inspected by the President.
Vice Mayor Ferdie Estrella, speaking on behalf of Mayor Sonia Estrella and the city government, said they were shocked at the revelation.
“We are not aware of such a project,” Estrella, a former three-term mayor, told the Inquirer.
He said local government units were often excluded from the planning and monitoring of projects undertaken by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
“The problem is, national projects are just brought down to the towns without the knowledge of the local chief executives,” Estrella said.
No flooding here
“We only learn about them through public postings or when the barangay officials report the contractors’ activities,” he added.
Some residents also expressed disbelief. A retired judge who lives near the inspected project site told the Inquirer: “That’s at the back of our house. We are not aware of any flooding there. We do not experience flooding.”
The Baliwag project supposedly involved the construction of a concrete river wall stretching for 220 meters.
On paper, work started on Feb. 25 and was completed on June 30, way ahead of the Oct. 22 deadline, with the DPWH Bulacan First District Engineering Office having fully paid the P55.73-million contract to SYMS Construction Trading.
For blacklisting
“Since we put up the website [sumbongsapangulo.ph], so many people have been writing in, and this is a perfect example of the abuse being committed by some of these contractors,” Mr. Marcos said.
The President said he had also learned that the river wall was not among the 9,855 flood control projects worth P545 billion that the DPWH implemented from July 2022 to May 2025.
He said a legal team was already working on the cases that could be filed against contractors of anomalous projects.
“[I]n the meantime, we are continuing to go through the records of the DPWH and all the big contractors to see if their reports match the complaints being brought to us by the public,” he added.
The President said he had ordered the DPWH to immediately put SYMS Construction on its blacklist and prepare criminal cases against the company.
16 projects, P931 million
All other public works projects being undertaken by the company would be scrutinized.
There was no immediate reply from Sally Santos, who was listed in DPWH documents as the sole proprietor of SYMS Construction, when reporters tried to call her given address in Malolos, Bulacan.
Based on the list of flood control projects released by the President last week, SYMS Construction has bagged 16 government projects in Bulacan for the past three years, all worth P931.2 million. —WITH REPORTS FROM LUISA CABATO AND CARMELA REYES-ESTROPE
