Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon has directed district engineers in Taguig to check whether flood control projects tied to Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano were funded but never built, following a public accusation by Sen. Panfilo Lacson.
The verification order comes as a feud between the two senators spills into questions over infrastructure spending in the city long identified with the Cayetano family. According to Manila Bulletin, Dizon said the matter had gained enough traction online that he asked the local engineering office to look into every flood control-related project in the area. He acknowledged, however, that he had not yet received the results of that check.
Lacson has claimed that a number of the projects credited to Taguig exist only in paperwork, and he has warned that anyone found responsible could face criminal charges. He said he is still collecting records and lining up people willing to testify before making his next move. In a radio interview cited by the Daily Tribune, Lacson said he had already pinpointed a person he described as Cayetano’s “bagman,” adding, “I’ve already identified [Cayetano’s] bagman. We’re about to make our move on that; we’re just gathering [evidence].”
Cayetano has flatly rejected the accusation. Speaking on a Facebook livestream, he said prior government reviews turned up nothing and pressed Lacson to produce proof. “There are no ghost projects in Taguig. If you can show one, someone should be held accountable,” he said, as reported by Philstar. He maintained that the Office of the Ombudsman had earlier examined projects in the city without finding irregularities, and that a separate law enforcement body reached the same conclusion. His own office, he added, reviewed local infrastructure work after questions surfaced and found nothing paid for but left undone.
Cayetano also pushed back on what he framed as unfair focus on his territory, arguing that scrutiny should extend to flood control spending in other jurisdictions such as Quezon City and Manila rather than one city alone. He called on the DPWH to have engineers and local governments photograph and document completed projects so that any genuine discrepancies could be traced quickly.
The dispute traces back to a weekend broadcast in which Cayetano questioned the growth in the declared net worth of Lacson and Sen. Erwin Tulfo. Lacson responded by accounting for the increase and then leveling the ghost project allegation, while also raising what he described as billions of pesos in budget insertions attributed to Cayetano under the 2025 national budget.
Tulfo, who heads the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, has signaled that the panel will take up the Taguig projects, noting that Cayetano’s brother, PTV general manager Lino Cayetano, was among those who called for the projects to be examined.
