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Alexis Romero - The Philippine Star
January 16, 2026 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang is still validating the claim of Sen. Panfilo Lacson that former Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) secretary Manuel Bonoan had deliberately provided false ghost flood control data to weaken the investigation on the anomaly.
“As of now, we are still verifying the things Senator Lacson said so we cannot provide details yet,” Palace press officer Claire Castro said at a briefing.
Citing “very reliable information,” Lacson said the data given by Bonoan led to incorrect grid coordinates of thousands of flood control projects nationwide.
“Even if he (Bonoan) insists he is not a principal player, we can very clearly see his complicity in covering up the crime,” the senator told reporters last Wednesday.
“He is misleading the Palace to weaken or discredit the investigation into ghost flood control projects. If several projects in the Sumbong Sa Pangulo website turn out to be false, people will think it is not reliable,” he added.
Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, who was an adviser to the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), earlier confirmed many flood control projects were marked with incorrect grid coordinates.
Magalong said during his field work for the fact-finding body, he found flood works that “reached rice fields but were far from the water.”
“It’s surprising this is happening because we have different devices to make sure that geographical coordinates are correct,” Magalong told True FM yesterday. “That’s why there are deceptions.”
“I don’t know if Secretary Bonoan submitted the coordinates, but from what we saw, the data that was submitted to us – it’s complete; if you look at the project, the title of the project, location and geographical coordinates – there are many mistakes,” the mayor said.
“I don’t know if they are doing it on purpose, but it’s impossible that they are not doing it on purpose,” he added.
Magalong said the descriptions of many flood works were “hard to understand,” the locations were difficult to search and the contractors varied even for projects built right next to each other.
The ICI briefly touched on the subject of coordinates when Bonoan appeared before the commission on Sept. 19, 2025.
“I did not confront him about the wrong coordinates; I just confronted him about the billions of pesos that were lost in their projects,” Magalong said, referring to Bonoan. “He said he knows nothing about it.”
Bonoan’s initial defense when the flood control mess erupted was that he had been blindsided by his own top lieutenants. During the ICI hearing attended by Bonoan, Magalong said the resigned secretary claimed he was swamped with work, which prompted him to delegate project supervision to his assistant secretaries and undersecretaries.
During his very first appearance before the Senate in August to discuss the multibillion-peso controversy, Bonoan said he only learned “lately” about ghost projects.
“You would see that he lacked supervision and knowledge on the ground,” Magalong said.
The ICI, in one of its interim reports, cited Bonoan’s negligence as a key factor allowing government corruption to fester.
“The scheme perpetrated by senior DPWH employees was made possible because Bonoan betrayed such trust reposed in him,” the ICI stated. “He miserably failed to exercise simple diligence tantamount to fraud in ensuring the judicious use of public funds entrusted to DPWH.”
Meanwhile, agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) are preparing to apply for a cyber warrant to examine data in the mobile phone of the late public works undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral.
NBI spokesman Palmer Mallari said the cyber warrant is intended to secure clear legal authority from the court to examine a cellphone believed to be vital to the case.
“Hopefully, once it is granted, and within the effective period of the cyber warrant, we will already have court authority. When we identify who has custody of the cellphone, we can then examine it,” Mallari said – EJ Macababbad, Mark Ernest Villeza
