MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Ping Lacson on Friday exposed another money making scheme at the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
The Senate president pro tempore said that this time it involved junior DPWH personnel who would “require contractors to submit documents priced at thousands of pesos per page.”
Lacson said these additional “requirements” were imposed by the “juniors” at the District Engineering Office level. These are on top of the regular commissions and “obligations” contractors are made to pay, he said.
“Corruption has become systemic where greed has evolved. Now they add requirements that cost money per page of bidding documents and material testing reports,” he said.
“Even individual pages of documentary requirements come at a price,” Lacson said in Filipino in a television interview.
The junior officials allegedly charge the following fees: technical notes like variation order: P10,000 for the documents plus P2,000 per page per request; Planning and Design Section: at least P50,000 for soft copy, depending on region; materials testing report: one percent of the contract cost; no receipt; bid Documents: at least P50,000, depending on the region; inspection per initial billing: P5,000 per inspector; additional P10,000 and P5,000 per signatory if prepared by DPWH “insiders;” final billing: P75,000 plus P5,000 per project engineer; quality assurance conducted by central office: the District Engineer will call contractors for P50,000; and construction Performance Evaluation System (CPES): P50,000 to P200,000.
Lacson, chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee looking into the corruption behind anomalous flood control projects, lamented that this showed how entrenched corruption has become at the DPWH alone.
