BAGUIO CITY – The central office of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) recent warned the public, especially local officials, against alleged unscrupulous individuals impersonating as DPWH officials and engineers posing as representatives of Secretary Rogelio L. Singson and other key agency officials and demanding from them substantial amount in exchange for flood control and other infrastructure projects to be funded by the agency.
Elizabeth P Pilorin, Director of the DPWH Stakeholders Relations Service, cited the agency had been receiving numerous complaints from local officials all over the country relative to the modus operandi involving unscrupulous individuals posing as authorized representatives of Secretary Singson and other agency key officials offering their services to work out the funding for their desired infrastructure projects but they are not actually authorized representatives of the agency.
“The impostors have allegedly been and are repeatedly soliciting cash and/or favors among local government officials nationwide in exchange of the approval of flood control and other infrastructure projects to be implemented by the DPWH,” Pilorin stressed.
The DPWH official cited the agency had already issued various public warnings within the agency with regards to the said illegal activities but it seems there are local officials who continuously give in to the offers of the unscrupulous individuals and the offered projects turn out to be false.
According to her, the DPWH is strictly adhering to a systematic procedure in the identification and prioritization for funding of major infrastructure projects to be funded by the agency during the conduct of the budget deliberations, thus, it is not true that giving huge amounts of money to ‘impostors’ would guarantee the inclusion of their desired projects in the priority listings of the agency for the coming years.
Pilorin called on local officials to directly get in touch with the nearest district offices in their respective areas of jurisdiction so that their desired priority flood control or infrastructure projects will be given preferential attention in the priority list of projects that would be funded in the future until such time that that major projects in the countryside will be funded and improved for the benefit of the greater majority of the populace.
She cited that if local officials have encountered any transaction with such kind of misrepresentations by the so-called ‘impostors,’ they must immediately report the matter to their office at telephone number 02-304-3370 or 02-304-3280 or email theory office at citizens_feedback@dpwh.gov.ph.
Pilorin cited that because the Yuletide season and the conduct of next year’s elections are just around the corner, numerous unscrupulous individuals have become enterprising and have resorted to extorting huge amounts of money from willing local officials with the promised return for funding of their priority flood control projects and major infrastructure projects that would be implemented in their place but eventually such promise would turn out to be a hoax.
By Dexter A. See
