Ping Lacson described flood control corruption as 'pie-sharing'

Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson, in his Senate privilege speech on Wednesday, likened the systemic corruption in flood control projects to "pie-sharing."

"Corruption has been so pervasive and systemic that doing so is like a piece of cake. And when I say ‘piece of cake,’ I mean that funds for a specific project are divided, with shares varying depending on greed — big portions swallowed by corrupt operators from both the public and private sectors, leaving only crumbs for actual project implementation," he said.

"While the pillaging pattern is relatively the same, the pie-sharing varies depending on the level of greed," he added.

Lacson cited an example: in a P100 million flood control project, automatic deductions are made for legal taxes and insurances such as VAT, withholding tax, bonds, and materials testing, along with the contractor’s profit. After these deductions, only P82 million remains for the actual project.

"But that is not yet the end," he said. "The budget will still be chopped into ‘lagay’ (bribes), commissions, SOPs, and different terminologies for the shares of the corrupt," he continued in Filipino.

Lacson also exposed a disturbing scheme he called “distinct,” which has reportedly surfaced within the Department of Public Works and Highways. It refers to budget items in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) and awarded contracts with identical amounts, allegedly serving as a "coded budget" for project “owners.”

In Bulacan’s 1st Engineering District, under former District Engineers Henry Alcantara and Brice Hernandez, 28 projects were each worth P72 million. Insiders and contractors revealed this as a blatant case of corruption, raising serious questions of accountability.