Back to zero? Faulty flood control coordinates mislead investigators

MANILA, Philippines – Hundreds of government field investigators have wasted their efforts after being sent to incorrect locations of flood control projects across the country due to faulty data from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). 

As a result, they now face the daunting task of revisiting around 10,000 projects they had already inspected. This is on top of thousands more that have yet to be inspected.

“Because the location coordinates provided and used by the validators were incorrect, of course, the effect was that they were misled into the wrong locations,” DPWH Undersecretary Arthur Bisnar said in a Senate blue ribbon committee hearing on Monday, January 19. 

“Even the report they submitted is basically wrong, since the location coordinates they based their inspection on were already incorrect,” Bisnar said. “Basically, we will restart all over.”

The validation effort, led by the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) and involving the DPWH, Department of National Defense, Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine National Police, and the Department of Economy Planning and Development, initially identified 421 ghost flood control projects.

Investigators had relied on the coordinates listed on the Sumbong sa Pangulo website, launched by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on August 11, 2025, to encourage the public to report anomalous flood control projects.

The Commission on Audit (COA) previously flagged similar discrepancies. In multiple reports, COA noted that during inspections, DPWH officials directed auditors to locations that did not match the approved project plans.

The ICI previously said that its investigation will focus on the 421 ghost flood control projects it had found. Out of this, Philippine National Police chief Rodolfo Azurin said the commission would prioritize 80 ghost flood control projects linked to the top 15 flood control projects named by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Dismissed DPWH secretary Manuel Bonoan described the 421 ghost flood control projects flagged as “mind boggling.”

Despite the flaws in the database, DPWH Undersecretary Ricardo Bernabe III clarified that there are some validated ghost flood control projects, which became the basis of the complaints filed by the agency before the Office of the Ombudsman. 

Department of Justice acting Secretary Fredderick Vida also said the flawed data will not affect the agency’s legal actions related to the flood control projects.

The coordinates on the Sumbong sa Pangulo website were based on
Multi-year Programming and Scheduling Application or MYPS coordinates, which do not necessarily point to the exact location of the flood control project.

An assessment of 337 flood control projects found that the real sites were often only about 50 meters —or less — away from the locations recorded in the MYPS database. – Rappler.com