Prosecutors from the Sandiganbayan Third Division conducted an ocular inspection yesterday at the supposed site of a P92.8-million flood control project in Pandi, Bulacan, and found nothing. The project in Barangay Bunsaran, previously reported as 95 percent complete, is central to the malversation case against former senator Ramon Revilla Jr. Prosecutors described it as a 'ghost project'.
Associate Justice Karl Miranda of the Sandiganbayan Third Division led the inspection, joined by members of the Department of Public Works and Highways Bulacan 1st District Engineering Office, ombudsman prosecutors, and lawyers for the accused.
DPWH Bulacan 1st DEO officer-in-charge Kenneth Fernando stated that no visible structures were present at the site. "There’s no project. It’s a ghost project," one prosecutor said, noting only three sets of barely visible, rusting steel sheet piles amid heavy vegetation. No revetment or containment wall—the supposed main components—were found.
The inspection formed part of the bail petition hearing in the malversation case against Revilla and dismissed Bulacan 1st DEO officials. It followed conflicting accounts from two prosecution witnesses, including an NBI witness who initially pointed to an adjacent site with unfinished structures.
Meanwhile, the Senate Blue Ribbon committee will hold no hearings until its partial report secures at least nine senators' signatures, Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson announced. The report currently bears signatures from Lacson, Risa Hontiveros, Bam Aquino, and Francis Pangilinan. It recommends probes into Senators Joel Villanueva, Francis Escudero, and former House speaker Martin Romualdez.