Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo “Ping” Lacson on Friday unveiled a new moneymaking scheme allegedly operated by junior staff at the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), describing it as part of a deepening culture of corruption within the agency.

In a television interview, Lacson revealed that district-level junior employees are now charging contractors exorbitant fees per page for various project documents—on top of the usual “commissions” and “obligations” already demanded from contractors.

"Corruption has become systemic, where greed has evolved. Now they add requirements that cost money per page of bidding documents and material testing reports,” Lacson said in Filipino.

“Even individual pages of documentary requirements come at a price,” he added.

Lacson cited confidential reports detailing how contractors are extorted under the guise of processing fees. Some of the alleged charges include:

• Variation Orders: P10,000 for the document, plus P2,000 per page per request

• Planning & Design Section Documents: At least P50,000 for a soft copy (varies by region)

• Materials Testing Report: 1% of total project amount (e.g., P750,000 for a P75 million project)

• Bid Documents: At least P50,000, depending on region

• Initial Billing Inspection: P5,000 per inspector, plus P10,000 and P5,000 per signatory if handled by DPWH “insiders”

• Final Billing: P75,000 + P5,000 per project engineer

• Quality Assurance from Central Office: P50,000 requested directly by the District Engineer

• Construction Performance Evaluation System (CPES): Between P50,000 to P200,000

‘Rotten to the Core’

Chairing the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee probing anomalies in flood control projects, Lacson said this scheme illustrates how corruption has reached even the lower ranks of DPWH.

He warned that junior personnel are emulating their superiors—who, as he revealed in privilege speeches on August 20 and September 9, have been gambling away hundreds of millions in public funds in casinos.

“The junior personnel see their district engineers get rich, so they decided to get rich as well,” Lacson said.

The senator stressed that while contractors may initially shoulder these hidden costs, the real victims are ordinary Filipino taxpayers who suffer from substandard infrastructure built on corruption.

“The lower-ranking personnel add requirements to 'punish' the contractors. But the real ones being punished are us taxpayers because the contractors pass on the costs to us by using substandard materials,” he added.

Lacson called for stronger oversight and structural reforms within the DPWH, warning that without decisive action, the rot in the system will deepen and public infrastructure will continue to crumble under institutionalized corruption.