FIRING LINE: A spark in the most hated agency

FIRING LINE: A spark in the most hated agency

By Robert B. Roque Jr. l October 22, 2026

It takes a shock to admit how deep the rot runs. Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon, speaking at a recent forum with journalists, said he was surprised by how deeply corruption and indifference have been ingrained in the DPWH. “Ibang klaseng animal ito,” he said, calling what he found in his over a year-long stint in the agency abhorrent.

He said he laid witness to half-finished roads, half-finished bridges, half-finished dikes, and missing flood control projects. He saw roads and bridges abandoned midway and left to rot for as long as eight years, while officials sat on their couches and budgeted time and money flew away.

Many district problems, he said, could be solved with plain common sense, yet even that proved too much to ask. Secretaries came and went, and the culture stayed.

That is why his personal inspections, which some dismiss as lame, are necessary. It takes the secretary, the top honcho of the agency, the very alter ego of the President, to cut through a culture this stubborn.

I understand Dizon introduced reforms in the DPWH, anchored on transparency. He swears he has put an end to the old ways when projects had no specific descriptions as long as they had the imprimatur of the approving authority. Now, it needs at least signatures across documents that include a comprehensive project plan, design, and timeline.

The DPWH is also dropping fragmented funding that leaves projects stalled midway, and is batting for multi-year budgeting for its projects so that funds approved by Congress ensure continuity till full delivery of the project.

Dizon is also blacklisting fly-by-night contractors in favor of those with proven track records, and partnering with civil society groups to monitor projects.

For the first time, the DPWH has also made it a policy to aim to finish long-neglected roads and bridges first, before taking on new ones.

On top of that, he also favors younger engineers, who he says are straightforward and see things in black and white. Bulacan shows what that looks like. To replace the disgraced Henry Alcantara and Brice Hernandez, Dizon installed OIC Kenneth Fernando, 33 years old, and another young engineer to be his assistant district engineer.

Checking on my sources down in Bulacan, it seems that together, they have signed off on properly surveyed designs and are rebuilding missing dikes in Calumpit and Hagonoy. Still, Dizon warned them of accountability and that they would suffer the same fate as Alcantara and Hernandez if they bring dirt on that “infamous” conference table once photographed with kickback cash from ghost projects.

At the media forum, Dizon brought to mind that nearly 50 people have been charged and jailed as cases over the flood control scam are pursued against officials, contractors and even former House Speaker Martin Romualdez, the President’s first cousin.

A lot of work has to be done to cleanse the DPWH and for justice to prevail. But if this continues the way it does, there may yet be a spark of hope in the most hated agency in government.

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