COA seeks tighter safeguards thru GPS-based geotagging of gov’t infra
THE Armed Forces of the Philippines said it has so far identified 252 “ghost projects” during its nationwide inspection of government-funded flood control infrastructure, military spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla said on Tuesday.
Padilla said the ongoing inspections stemmed from the directive of the Independent Commission for Infrastructure, which tasked the AFP and the Philippine National Police to help vet a total of 30,000 projects flagged for verification.
“There were 30,000 projects that were deemed for the AFP and the PNP collectively to inspect. From these 30,000 projects, the AFP has inspected 10,000 projects,” she said.
“It turned out that 252 of these are ghost projects, from 2016 to present,” she added.
Padilla said the ghost projects were “scattered all over the Philippines.”
“We will not stop here. We will continue until we finish what the ICI tasked us to do,” she said.
The Department of Finance earlier disclosed that economic losses from corruption in flood control projects may have averaged P118.5 billion annually from 2023 to 2025.
The DOF said this was equivalent to 95,000 to 266,000 jobs that could have benefited Filipinos.
As this developed, the Commission on Audit said it is working on a new policy that will require mandatory GPS-based geotag-ging for all government infrastructure projects to eliminate ghost projects.
“The public has repeatedly demanded tighter safeguards against the misuse of funds, and this policy is our direct response. Ge-otagging will ensure that when the government pays for a project, we know exactly where it is, when it was done, and what was actually built,” COA chairperson Gamaliel Cordoba said.
Once in effect, the new policy would require government agencies and contractors to submit geotagged photos of ongoing in-frastructure projects.
“Let this be clear, the proper use of taxpayer funds is non-negotiable and we will hold projects accountable to deliver measurable benefits for every Filipino community,” Cordoba added.
