Photo courtesy of Ping Lacson/Facebook.
Senator Panfilo Lacson claimed to have uncovered what he described as a possible double appropriation involving two separate Php 100 million allocations for what appeared to be the same slope protection project in Taguig City.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Lacson said his latest review increased the total value of questioned budget insertions in the 2025 General Appropriations Act from Php 2.085 billion to Php 2.385 billion after identifying three additional Php 100 million slope protection projects.
He said two of the newly identified allocations appeared to fund the same project, raising suspicions that one of them could be a ghost appropriation.
Lacson previously disclosed that his team had documented at least two suspected ghost infrastructure projects in Taguig, the political stronghold of Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano.
He also earlier questioned several slope protection and drainage projects in the city worth around Php 100 million each, which he said formed part of the Php 6.79 billion in alleged budget insertions under the 2025 spending law.
According to Lacson, 68 of the 70 projects covered by the questioned insertions had already been implemented, while two projects worth a combined Php 75 million remained unobligated.
Cayetano has denied the existence of ghost projects in Taguig and challenged Lacson to widen his investigation instead of focusing solely on the city. The senator’s camp had yet to respond to the latest allegations as of posting time.
The National Bureau of Investigation has begun looking into the alleged ghost projects following Lacson’s disclosures, including infrastructure projects dating back to 2019 and 2020, when Cayetano was serving as House speaker.