The corruption embedded in government flood control projects is not the work of a single orchestrating figure but of organized groups operating independently across different regions and district engineering offices, Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson said Wednesday.
Lacson, who chairs the Senate blue ribbon committee, pushed back against the notion of a unified criminal hierarchy directing the alleged infrastructure scam. “I don’t think there’s an overall mastermind because it’s driven by greed, so I said it’s parasitic… But there is an organized group within a specific agency or district engineering office. In Bulacan, that’s really a syndicate,” he said.
He singled out the Department of Public Works and Highways Bulacan 1st District Engineering Office as among those where officials have been implicated in infrastructure-related corruption.
The senator’s remarks came a day after Sen. Jinggoy Estrada asked him directly whether he had identified a mastermind behind the flood control anomalies. Lacson said he believed each region likely had its own: “I think every region or every district engineer has a mastermind.”
When pressed on whether former House appropriations committee chairman Elizaldy Co fit that description, Lacson was unconvinced. “When you say mastermind, it implies a fully organized setup, like a mafia, where everyone follows you. I don’t think so… There may be a particular congressman — not necessarily Zaldy Co — who manipulates within his area of influence,” he said.
Lacson stressed that his findings were grounded in documented evidence, noting that no single individual could plausibly command all regional directors simultaneously.
Although he refused to entertain questions from colleagues immediately after delivering a privileged speech during Tuesday’s session — citing the pending blue ribbon committee partial report — he later spoke with Estrada privately. He told him: “You cannot pinpoint a single mastermind in the whole situation… What we tackled were microcosms—representative samples of the extent of corruption in flood control projects.”
Lacson has said he will only respond to questions from fellow senators once the partial report is signed by a majority of committee members. The document has been circulating since February without securing the signatures needed for formal sponsorship.
