ACT Teachers Partylist Rep. Antonio Tinio submitted a letter to the Office of the Ombudsman with its findings concerning anomalous flood control projects in the 1st District of Davao City amounting to P4.4 billion through the years of 2019 to 2022.
Based on the ACT Teachers’ independent investigation along the Davao and Matina River on a total of 121 projects, 80 contracts were “red-flagged” by the group for various irregularities.
Among the anomalies cited were double funding of projects under the 2020 General Appropriations Act (ACT) and was supposedly awarded to two different contractors for an amount of P115 million.
A huge chunk of the previously mentioned funding was also said to have gone to projects with contracts that lacked proper specifications worth P3.56 billion while some had instances of location changes and shortchanging tallying P425 million.
Some projects were also said to have been tagged as “100% complete” but remained “on-going” despite the numerous years that have passed since the project was meant to have started.
Tinio noted that this was the same report they had furnished to the Independent Commission on Infrastructure (ICI) that was established by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. solely to investigate such issues.
However, with the closure of the ICI last 31 March, the solon said that no actions were taken to hold any public official that was responsible for the irregularities accountable with the only response he got from ICI Chairperson Andres Reyes Jr. being a simple, “Noted.”
“Tinanggap nila, ngunit wala ng aksyon na ginawa dito, at in the meantime ay alam natin nagsara na yung ICI. Hopefully ngayon ay maaaksyunan ito ng Ombudsman,” he said.
(They accepted it, but they did not act on it, and in the meantime we know that the ICI has closed. Hopefully the Ombudsman could act on it)
Tinio further explained that some projects came from the congressional insertions of Davao City 1st District Rep. Paolo “Pulong” Duterte, with most projects being awarded to Genesis88 Construction.
Genesis88 is the construction company of the presidential adviser of former President Rodrigo Duterte, Glenn Escandor which was also said to have accumulated a total of P2.9 billion in contracts under the 2025 GAA.
Though not directly being listed in the contracts, Tinio noted that it was still Pulong’s responsibility to ensure that all projects under his district were completed.
“Distrito mo ito, responsibilidad mo ito. Kailangan maipaliwanag kung bakit may mga ganitong anomalya,” he stresed.
(This is your district, this is your responsibility. It must be explained why there are these anomalies)
Asked how confident he is that the investigation would yield a different outcome to the ICI, Tinio said that he was banking on the recent announcements of the Ombudsman that he was going to be active in pursuing cases against public officials related to the scandal.
Ombudsman Probe
In a recent press conference, Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla said that they had some cases that were close to issuing cases against public officials as their investigations were in the stage of “maturing.”
Remulla explained that they may file complaints between May to July and refused to provide additional details regarding their process in an effort to not drown out the noise concerning the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte.
“We don’t really want to gain out the noise of impeachment, impeachment is a constitutional process as we are a constitutional body, we give due respect to that process,” he said.
