MANILA—More than P180 billion has likely been lost to ghost flood control projects dating back to 2016, not counting substandard ones, Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo “Ping” M. Lacson said Wednesday.

Lacson said he and Senate finance committee chairman Sherwin Gatchalian reached the estimate after inspecting around 10,000 flood control projects, where more than 600 were found to be ghost or nonexistent.

“We are looking at 30,000 flood control projects since 2016. If we extrapolate based on earlier findings that more than 600 out of 10,000 projects were ghost, Sen. Gatchalian and I estimated that 6% or higher of 30,000 projects could mean P180 billion or higher went to ghost projects,” he said in a mix of English and Filipino in an interview on DZBB radio.

“Imagine, we likely lost P180 billion to ghost projects and we have not yet started counting our losses to substandard projects,” he added.

Lacson said the figure dwarfs the number of anomalous projects so far uncovered by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, which he chairs. He previously detailed schemes behind ghost and substandard flood control projects in privilege speeches in August and September.

He also pointed to the P110 billion “returned” by former Department of Public Works and Highways district engineer Henry Alcantara last week as a “pittance,” even if Alcantara is expected to return an additional P200 million in the coming weeks.

Lacson said the Blue Ribbon Committee remains ready to assist agencies such as the Independent Commission for Infrastructure, the Department of Justice, and the Office of the Ombudsman in pursuing charges if new information emerges.

“If new information is brought before the Committee, hopefully we can help the ICI, Ombudsman and DOJ,” he said.

Meanwhile, Lacson said the Senate has begun addressing practices linked to anomalous flood control projects by ensuring greater transparency in the budget process.

He said measures such as livestreaming the period of amendments and making all senators’ individual proposals public aim to prevent allocables, leadership funds, and other forms of pork barrel from entering the 2026 budget.

“There will be no room for allocables because we made the process transparent. If you watched our livestream Tuesday, we introduced individual amendments on the floor, unlike in the past when lawmakers just wrote their amendments on paper and passed it to the finance committee chairman,” he said.

“We started this in the Senate yesterday. All individual amendments were introduced personally or read by Senate Finance Committee chairman Sherwin Gatchalian. Sen. Gatchalian read the individual amendments of 11 senators. He will now study which amendments to accept and which to reject,” he added.

Lacson earlier criticized allocables as the new pork barrel after reviewing documents related to the 2025 budget, which he described as “corrupt to the core.” He said allocables appear in the National Expenditure Program even before lawmakers identify specific items to be funded.

He added that the majority bloc has agreed to entrust Gatchalian with final decisions on which amendments to accept or reject, with support from the Senate Legislative Budget Research and Monitoring Office, which is reviewing the proposals.

“We entrust Gatchalian to decide which amendments to accept or reject. We will support him should the matter come to a vote on the floor,” he said.

Lacson said the Senate and House of Representatives have also agreed to simplify bicameral conference committee proceedings, limiting discussions to disagreeing provisions in their respective budget versions and excluding any “alien” insertions.

Gatchalian will also post the amendments and related documents on the Senate’s transparency portal.

“This will be simpler and more transparent and that is our intention. In the bicam, we will ensure transparency, all the way to the bill being enrolled,” he said.