BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Benjamin Magalong has maintained that his advocacy against corruption will continue, especially in government infrastructure projects involving several politicians and personnel of the Department of Public Works and Highway (DPWH).

Magalong’s exposure of government corruption intensified when President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) mentioned corruption in flood control projects in various parts of the country.

Last year, Magalong first exposed the overpriced DPWH projects in the Cordillera region in the cat eyes or reflector lights projects on roads, yellow barriers and rock netting.

He said the actual price of a cat eye is only P1,350 per piece, but the DPWH’s detailed price analysis shows it is P11,720, so it appears that it is overpriced by P10,370 each.

The yellow barriers found on highway curves have a budget of P121,330 per meter of road, but the actual price is said to be P20,000, so it appears that the kickback per meter is more than P100,000.

Magalong also said that the price of rock netting is P6,000 per square meter, but what was listed by the DPWH was P25,000 in 2023.

He said that if we add up the rock netting purchased for the Cordillera region from 2017 to 2023, it reaches P46.61 billion and an estimated P28 billion went to kickback.

“I used to ask for data information or documents from DPWH, but they played with me and tricked me. Sometimes I also requested the Regional Development Council to complete DPWH to provide me with documents for contracts, but DPWH told me that they would provide me with a link, but we have been clicking on the link for a week and we can’t find anything there. So I talked to NEDA, that’s where we saw the seriousness,” Magalong said in an interview.

Magalong previously said that he is ready to appear anywhere, especially in Congress to uphold his disclosure against corruption. (Zaldy Comand