By CESAR JOLITO III
San Carlos Mayor Renato Gustilo has sought the assistance of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to probe three flood control projects worth P306 million that were reportedly implemented but were never carried out on the ground.
Gustilo said he was surprised after receiving a letter from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) national office confirming that three multimillion-peso flood control projects were supposedly completed in the city.
“These projects never passed through my office. Even our local DPWH here denied knowledge of them. That is why I am calling them ‘ghost projects,’” Gustilo stressed.
He said the flood control projects were listed under contractors based in Mountain Province and Benguet, not Negros Occidental.
The projects in question include
* P151.5-million flood control structure in Barangay Palampas by A.P.O. General Construction based in Mountain Province
* P77.5-million flood control project in the Ando-on River by EKC Construction based in Benguet
* P77.3-million flood control project in the Higalaman River, Barangay Guadalupe, also by a Benguet-based firm, Jaben General Contracting and Engineering Services.
“What I know is that the flood control projects here were undertaken by contractors from Bacolod under the DPWH District,” Gustilo said.
The mayor pointed out that the signatures of his office and an engineer from the City Engineer’s Office were reflected in the documents despite their denial of involvement.
“It raises serious questions on how my name and that of our engineer appeared in these papers,” the mayor said.
“My signatures on these documents for the three flood control projects were not original or simply forged,” he added.
Gustilo denied the alleged forged signatures affixed to the contracts of work and acceptance documents.
“They’re not real. They’re fake,” he pointed out.
It was learned that the alleged ghost projects were not listed on the Sumbong sa Pangulo portal, a website launched by the Office of the President to track government projects.
The website revealed eight other flood control projects in San Carlos were implemented by DPWH’s 5th Engineering District between 2023 and 2025, with a combined value of more than P448 million.
“My office had no direct participation in the planning up to the implementing stage. I just instructed our City Engineer’s Office to check if indeed these projects were already done,” Gustilo said.
He has formally asked the NBI to determine how the projects were recorded, who authorized them, and whether public funds were released without actual implementation.
“This is about accountability and protecting government funds. If these are ghost projects, then someone has to answer where the P306 million went,” Gustilo said./CJ, WDJ