Filipino newsrooms have a word for the reporter who runs with a tip before checking it: nakuryente. Nothing is more embarrassing for someone whose trade is the truth, because he does it to himself. Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson has built a career on the boast that he never speaks without resibo. His campaign against Taguig is giving the country a close look at those receipts, and they look a lot like kuryente.
On Sept. 25, Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon faced the Senate for his department’s budget and was asked whether any Taguig project was among those conclusively found to be ghost projects. He said none. His undersecretary, Ricardo Bernabe III, added that the department had listed 107 projects in Taguig and that all of them had accomplishments. For a senator who has spent months painting Taguig as a breeding ground for ghost infrastructure, it was a bad afternoon.
Lacson did not take it well. He announced that the secretary had contradicted his own engineers and that the pressure of the job may have “clouded” his memory. To back that up he had preliminary inspection reports and a photo analysis showing billing pictures that looked alike. Every item in that pile is a red flag or an anomaly still waiting to be validated, and an inspector who could not verify a project on one visit has hardly proven that it never existed.
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Dizon made the same point when he clarified. The department has ten confirmed ghost projects nationwide and none of them is in Taguig. Several Taguig projects are still being checked against documents and on the ground, and he asked that nobody draw conclusions while that work is unfinished. Lacson’s admirers would rather skip what came next, which is that the senator agreed with him. Preliminary findings, he conceded, “do not automatically prove a project was ‘ghosted.'”
After months of certainty, that is quite an admission. This is the same man who demanded to know since when Taguig had been located in Leyte, because the geotag on a set of billing photos pointed 600 kilometers away. A wrong geotag deserves an explanation, and what it shows is a discrepancy in the paperwork. Whether the structure itself is imaginary is a separate matter, and whether any politician pocketed a peso is further off still. Lacson fired the accusation first and admitted the limits of his evidence afterward. Any news editor would call that kuryente, since the tip went out as a conclusion and the checking came after the headline.
By then the damage is done, because the public remembers the headline and not the clarification that followed it. A former police general who has run investigations for decades knows the difference between a lead and proof better than most people, and he blurred it anyway.
He did it again at the lake. Lacson released footage of an inspection along the Taguig lakeshore, called the activity there “impunity,” and declared that somebody feels he is above the law. Taguig answered with specifics. The land in the video, the city said, is not land it possesses or uses. It is claimed by private individuals and a neighborhood association, and the city issued them no permit or authority. All the video shows is earth being moved on the Taguig side of Laguna Lake. It does not show who owns the land, who ordered the filling, who paid for it, or which official, if any, had a hand in it. Until someone answers those questions, the senator has a video and a grudge.
The grudge is on the record. Lacson himself has said, in so many words, that his team dug into Taguig because Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano had been noisy. Days before he brought anything to the Ombudsman, he was already posting about which jail Cayetano belonged in. Cayetano calls him investigator, prosecutor, and judge rolled into one, and Lacson’s reply was to sneer that the titles would be a compliment if they came from someone credible.
It gets worse when the machinery of government is pulled into the feud. Lacson has sent his Taguig material to the Ombudsman and has called on the Ombudsman, the reclamation authority, the land registration authority, the lake authority, the environment department, and the DPWH to work together on the lakeshore. Asking the proper agencies to look at evidence is legitimate. Lining them up against a political enemy is an abuse of them, and so is letting it look that way. The Ombudsman and the DPWH do not work for Senator Lacson, and neither does any regulator he would like to point at whoever insulted him last week.
Dizon found that out. A Cabinet secretary gave the Senate an answer that did not fit the senator’s story, and within days the senator was on the radio warning him about criminal liability for a cover-up. Whatever Lacson intended, every public servant holding a Taguig file heard that he should give the answer Lacson wants or expect to be named next.
Lacson says his credibility is established and his receipts are complete. But a reputation earned in past exposés cannot turn a preliminary inspection into a final finding, and saying “may resibo” excuses nobody from showing what the receipt actually proves. If the evidence shows ghost projects or illegal reclamation, then prosecute whoever ordered them and profited. If it falls short of the personal guilt he keeps insinuating, he owes the public a retraction as loud as the accusation.
Taguig has said it wants the fight against corruption pursued with fairness and respect for the truth, and by that standard Lacson is failing. Nobody is asking him to stop. He can investigate Taguig, Cayetano, and every contractor and questionable project he likes. What he cannot do is pass off suspicion as proof and a personal war as a public service. The senator who prides himself on never being caught without a receipt is one validation report away from the most humiliating end a self-styled master investigator can meet: siya mismo ang nakuryente.
Hello everyone, my name is Oman and I am a Middle Eastern man who has been fortunate enough to receive my education in the United Kingdom.
I am excited to share my political insights on the Philippines, a country that has been my home for the past thirty years.
Having grown up in the Middle East, I was initially drawn to the Philippines for its vibrant culture, warm hospitality, and breathtaking landscapes. Over the years, I have developed a deep appreciation for this beautiful nation and its people, which has fueled my desire to understand and contribute to its political landscape.
Living here for three decades has allowed me to witness firsthand the country's political evolution, from the turbulent times to the remarkable progress it has achieved. I have closely observed the challenges, triumphs, and the resilience of the Filipino people, which have shaped my unique perspective on its political affairs.
Through this blog, I hope to provide a fresh perspective on Philippine politics, drawing upon my Middle Eastern background and British education. I believe that my experiences and insights can contribute to meaningful discussions and shed light on the intricacies of the country's political landscape.
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