‘P*tang in* naman o!’

‘P*tang in* naman o!’ | Daily Tribune

The government had sold the project in its usual highfalutin infrastructure vocabulary: expressway-grade asphalt, laser-guided paving, faster construction, less disruption — a smarter way to fix EDSA without causing another traffic nightmare.

Then the southwest monsoon rained cats and dogs, made worse by typhoons “Luis” and “Maymay.” Potholes appeared. The new surface peeled off. Water pooled where it had no business pooling.

Alas, a road just given a technological government makeover began looking like the same old EDSA. So, what else is new?

Built in the late 1930s and popularly known as Highway 54, it was renamed for Epifanio de los Santos in 1959. EDSA is 23.8 kilometers of accumulated promises — repaired, reblocked, resurfaced, widened and “rehabilitated” for most of its existence.

“EDSA rehabilitation” is less a project than a recurring season — like the monsoon, with the potholes always coming back.

A grand rehabilitation was floated as far back as 2005. A P3.74-billion plan followed in 2013, but it ran into the eternal EDSA problem: you cannot repair the road without disrupting traffic — and disruption makes officials rediscover the virtues of postponement.

By 2015, the plan was shelved. Instead came the familiar process of reblocking, overlays, and drainage work. Until the Duterte administration tried something different — not more room for cars, but for fewer, via the EDSA Busway and Skyway Stage 3. And it actually worked, somewhat.

Then came the Marcos administration’s rehab version, suspended in 2025, redesigned, restarted in December in phases, sold again as faster and less disruptive. Phase 1, Roxas Boulevard to Orense, was completed.

You couldn’t have written a better script — except for what emerged in congressional hearings about well-entrenched corruption at the DPWH, not just limited to ghost or substandard (that word again) flood control projects.

Brice Hernandez, a DPWH district engineer, testified that every project handled by the Bulacan 1st District Engineering Office since 2019 was tainted with kickbacks — political proponents allegedly pocketed 25 to 30 percent in commissions from flood control and other works, with designs and costs manipulated to generate the money.

That testimony concerned Bulacan, not EDSA, and no evidence has surfaced tying that specific scheme to this specific project. But it does establish, credibly, that this is how DPWH contracting actually works — and it raised a question EDSA’s contractors and auditors have not yet answered: was this project’s design and costing scrutinized any differently?

Roads do not become smooth just because officials give them impressive names. And if a quarter or more of a project’s value can vanish into commissions before the first shovel breaks ground, somebody has to absorb the cost — inflated prices, compromised materials, and corner-cutting that only becomes visible when it rains.

The public pays twice: once through taxes, again through repairs.

Dizon’s outburst may be the most honest assessment anyone has offered. But honesty from a Cabinet secretary isn’t a fix.

What EDSA actually needs, before government announces yet another “rehabilitation,” is an independent, itemized audit of Phase 1 — where every peso went, what was spent on materials, how much went to contractors and subcontractors, and who got something along the way.

That audit should be made public.

Phase 2 should get not one peso until the questions are answered. Because the problem isn’t just the road and other government projects. It’s the racket — politicians taking cuts, officials looking away, and taxpayers having to foot the bill.