When government figures are flagrantly fabricated, the lies will eventually be exposed. This is what has happened with the Department of Public Works and Highways’ claims about its savings over the past years under the daang matuwid of the sanctimonious Aquino administration.
Last June 27, the Inquirer printed the letter of Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson who said that the total savings of the DPWH in the past five years have reached P39 billion. To quote Secretary Singson:
“Through the reforms we have initiated in the department’s procurement process, allowing full transparency, competitive bidding and reduced indirect costs of projects, the government was able to realize P39 billion in savings from the biddings alone since July 2010 up to the present.”
First of all, if the savings were realized “from the biddings alone,” so why was the “indirect costs of projects” cited as one of the reasons for the savings?
Second, the Inquirer reported a month earlier (“DPWH saves P39B, cites its ‘full transparency,’” News, 5/25/15) the alleged P39-billion savings in the past four and a half years. This is different from what the secretary wrote in his letter regarding his department’s savings “since July 2010 up to the present.”
To quote the first sentence of that report of Jerry Esplanada: “ … the Department of Public Works and Highways has saved more than P39 billion in cost for infrastructure projects during the past four and a half years… Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson said.” Not five years, as Singson wrote!
As if the inconsistency in their alleged savings were not enough, the DPWH gave a bigger figure to President Aquino, which he proudly announced during the 117th anniversary of the DPWH on June 22, 2015, and which was reported in the Inquirer the next day (“PH moves up in world infra rankings,” News, 6/23/15 ).
“During the last four and a half years, the (DPWH) saved more than P48.5 billion through ‘full transparency’ in operations, including the conduct of competitive bidding for billions of pesos worth of infrastructure projects nationwide.”
Question: When will all the lies and corruption at the DPWH end?
—RICARDO B. RAMOS, executive director, InfraWatch, rbrpilipinas@gmail.com