Since when did Leyte become part of Taguig?

That’s the question Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson is asking Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Vince Dizon after a Taguig project was allegedly found in Leyte, roughly 600 kilometers from Senator Alan Cayetano’s political bailiwick, with the Discaya couple as the purported contractor.

The challenge was triggered by Dizon’s denial that there were “ghost” or nonexistent projects in Taguig after he was confronted by Cayetano during a budget hearing at the Senate on Friday.

Lacson claimed that Dizon’s account was in stark contrast to the findings of DPWH site inspection reports carried out by his own subordinates, which allegedly found that billing records for Taguig did not match the actual location of the project.

The findings were reportedly submitted by the DPWH to Lacson’s office at the height of the lawmaker’s independent probe into allegations of anomalous projects in Taguig.

According to Lacson, the project record showed that the Taguig local government released P13.74 million, representing a 15 percent advance payment, on 23 June 2022, but the submitted photographs indicated that the project was located in Leyte.

“Since when has Taguig been located in Leyte?” Lacson asked. “Sec. Vince Dizon, please explain how this finding of your own team should not be flagged as a ghost project in Taguig.”

More strikingly, the project was allegedly awarded to St. Timothy Construction Corp., a firm owned by the couple Curlee and Sarah Discaya, who are currently behind bars on malversation and graft charges stemming from allegations of ghost and substandard flood-control projects across the country.

“What do you say about this, Sec?” Lacson pressed Dizon.

The findings further suggested that certain project billings in Taguig purportedly lacked photographic evidence of implementation, such as a project involving P37.16 million in July 2022, and that a project amounting to P21.20 million had no coordinates in its attached images in a billing dated 22 September 2022.

Meanwhile, three separate billings allegedly showed that Taguig shelled out P19.174 million on 12 September 2022, and another P18.960 million on 22 February 2023, with supporting geotagged photo evidence but no coordinates.

GPS coordinates serve as a safeguard for locating, monitoring and auditing public infrastructure projects and are mandatory.

The glaring discrepancies in the reports, according to Lacson, suggest that the projects are either ghost or fraudulent.