Lacson: Dizon contradicted DPWH engineers on Taguig projects

Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson expressed his sympathies to the site engineers of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), saying agency chief Vince Dizon seemingly contradicted their findings.

During the Senate hearing on the DPWH 2027 proposed budget, Senator Alan Peter Cayetano—who has been on verbal squabble with Lacson—asked Dizon if his political bailiwick of Taguig City had any ghost or non-existent infrastructure projects. Dizon said no ghost projects have been found in Taguig City so far, based on the department's current investigation.

In a statement on Saturday, Lacson said Dizon was suffering from a "clouded" memory.

"Poor DPWH Site Inspection Engineers. Their boss, Sec. Vince Dizon directly contradicted their own site inspection reports in Taguig, specifically submitted by personnel from the department's Bureau of Quality and Safety and Bureau of Maintenance," Lacson said in an X post.

In a separate post, Lacson said, "Poor Vince Dizon. The 'pressure' of work may have clouded his memory. The DPWH already turned over to my Senate office records of nonexistent but reported as completed slope protection projects in Taguig. Like toothpaste squeezed from the tube, there's no putting it back in," the senator said in a separate post.

GMA News Online has reached out to Dizon for a statement and will update the story once he responds.

According to Lacson, when Dizon said there were no ghost projects, it was inconsistent with site inspection reports of the DPWH's Bureaus of Maintenance, Quality and Safety, Construction, and Research and Standards.

Lacson said the reports found that there were several Taguig flood control projects that were declared as completed, and yet the inspection team could not validate their physical presence.

The senator also cited data from the DPWH's "Analysis of Potential Similar Billing Photographs from 2017-2025 of Taguig projects using AI-Based Image Similarity Detection Approach."

A billing photo is used to indicate the progress of a project.

He said 1,079 pairs of images out of 15,523 were flagged for high visual similarity. The report supposedly tagged 180 unique contracts with 10 contractors with the most number of projects with similar billing photos.

Alleged similar billing photos were found in 16 unique projects of one contractor; 10 or more projects involving five firms; and at least five similar photos across all 10 contractors. — VDV, GMA News