Lacson eyes post-audit of roads to bust corruption in gov’t infra program

Presidential candidate Senator Panfilo Lacson on Wednesday said a post-audit of road projects would help in eradicating corruption in the government's infrastructure program.

The lawmaker made the remark at GO Negosyo-One News' "KandidaTalks" program, when he was asked about his observations on the road projects which receive regular funding from the national government.

Lacson said he regularly monitors the road "preventive maintenance" items which are included in the annual General Appropriations Bill.

"Ang laki ng pondo diyan, tens of billions of pesos every year. So, preventive, alam naman natin na ito ‘yung tapal-tapal, ‘di ba? Kagagawa lang ng kalsada, wala pang isang taon ay kailangang bungkalin na naman at i-repair. Ang laki ng natatapong pera diyan," he noted.

(Tens of billions of pesos are allocated to preventive maintenance road works every year. So, we know preventive to be the slapdash covering up, right? A street is newly built, not a year later it needs to be dug up and repaired again. A lot of money is wasted.)

The lawmaker then suggested a post-audit of these projects to test if the contractors used standard materials.

"Madali lang naman ‘yan kung [merong] parang post-audit, ano. ‘Yung physical audit na kung saan—alam ng mga civil engineers ito—na kung saan pwedeng i-drill o kaya i-bore randomly, ano, ‘yung portions ng isang street o isang highway para ma-test ‘yung standard ng materials," he said.

(It's easy if there's a post-audit. A physical audit—civil engineers know this—where you randomly bore into portions of a street or highway to test the materials.)

"Pero oras na gawin natin ‘yung pag-che-check, spot check ng mga katatapos lang o kaya ‘yung six months old o kaya one-year old na mga proyekto na may diperensya na kaagad... habulin ‘yung mga responsable. Hanggang walang nakukulong hindi mahihinto ‘yung corruption tungkol sa ating infrastructure projects," the presidential bet added.

(As soon as we do a spot check of newly finished or six-month-old or year-old projects that already have problems, we can go after the ones responsible. While no one is being jailed for this, the corruption in our infrastructure projects will not stop.)

Lacson's presidential campaign centers on budget reform and anti-corruption platforms.

He and his running-mate, Senate President Vicente Sotto III woo voters with the slogan: "Aayusin ang Gobyerno, Aayusin ang Buhay ng Bawat Pilipino." — BM, GMA News