MANILA. Akbayan party-list Representative Chel Diokno. Screenshot from House video
THE House Joint Committees on Public Accounts, Public Works and Highways, and Good Government and Public Accountability adopted a motion requiring all its members to disclose any conflict of interest that may affect their participation into their investigation on anomalous flood control projects.
The motion for the members of the panel to make a full disclosure of their financial, business or pecuniary interest that may be directly or indirectly affect their investigation on the government's past or present flood control projects was introduced by Akbayan party-list Representative Chel Diokno in a bid to preserve the integrity of panels' probe.
"I believe we need to assure the public that this investigation will not be a whitewash and that no members of the three committees conducting this investigation have a conflict of interest," Diokno said.
Las Piñas Representative Mark Santos seconded Diokno's motion "to protect impartiality of the committee and avoid perception of bias."
Following the unanimous approval of the motion, committee chairperson Bicol Saro Representative Terry Ridon ordered all the members of the tri-committee to submit, within five days, a disclosure stating that they have no conflict of interest in the inquiry.
Should they have conflict of interest into the probe, they will be asked to inhibit from the investigation.
Earlier, Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson claimed that at least 67 House lawmakers were either engaged in government infrastructure contracts themselves or had relatives in the business.
During his fourth State of the Nation Address, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered for an in-depth investigation on the irregularities in the flood control projects across the country in light of the recent massive floods that submerged communities during the onslaught of habagat (southwest monsoon) and the series of typhoons.
Marcos said that from July 2022 to May 2025, the government had a total of 9,855 flood control projects across the country valued at P545.64 billion.
He said of the P545 billion total allocation for flood control projects, 20 percent or P100 billion was awarded to these 15 firms.
Since August 11, when the President revealed the initial finding in the flood control probe, Marcos visited and inspected a total of 11 flood mitigating projects in Marikina, Iloilo, Bulacan and Benguet.
On August 20, following an inspection in one of the ghost flood projects in Bulacan worth more than P55 million, Marcos said he is not only disappointed but instead "very angry." (TPM/SunStar Philippines)