The Senate is pushing for a sweeping reorganization of the Department of Public Works and Highways to curb corruption and address procurement loopholes following recent Blue Ribbon committee investigations.
Senate Bill 1835, filed on February 11 by Senate President Vicente Sotto III, aims to significantly reduce the powers of DPWH district engineering offices, which played a key role in corruption schemes probed in cases like the Bulacan first district engineering office. The bill would strip these district offices of their authority to identify projects and conduct bidding processes, transferring those functions to regional offices instead. District offices would then be limited to supervision, monitoring, and recommendatory roles to enhance ground-level oversight.
Sotto stated that the overhaul is necessary to ensure accountability in one of the government's most heavily funded agencies. To promote transparency, the bill mandates the creation of an Infrastructure Inspectorate Team, under which no disbursements or payments to contractors can occur without clearance. Inspections must also be livestreamed on official channels.
Additionally, an Infrastructure Maintenance Services Unit would be established to inspect, evaluate, and monitor completed projects. This unit would maintain a centralized, publicly accessible database allowing citizens to track project progress and funding. At the national level, the DPWH would be reorganized by key infrastructure project types to decentralize preparation and implementation.
The bill is set for committee deliberations in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon has carried out a reshuffle at the DPWH, targeting district engineer and assistant district engineer positions amid the ghost flood control scandal from last year. Special orders issued on February 25 reassigned or promoted 24 officers to district engineer roles and 18 to assistant positions in the Luzon and National Capital Region offices.