Donate

KWEBA ni BAROK

Marcos Paves Over Plunder With Robredo’s Sidewalk—And You’re Supposed to Clap

Published by

Louis ‘Barok’ Biraogo

on

Marcos Paves Over Plunder With Robredo’s Sidewalk—And You’re Supposed to Clap
A SARO for Naga, a Subpoena for Sara, and a Nation Asked Not to Notice the Timing

By Louis ‘Barok‘ C. Biraogo — July 21, 2026

The Swamp and the Sidewalk

Welcome to the Republic of the Philippines, July 2026. In one corner of the news cycle, the Senate is sharpening its subpoena knives, preparing to dissect Vice President Sara Duterte’s bank records with the kind of glee usually reserved for a telenovela finale. The stench of the flood-control plunder scandal—a rotting edifice of ghost projects, overpriced contracts, and Sandiganbayan-bound bureaucrats—still clings to the air.

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) is an agency in institutional sepsis. And into this fetid swamp waltzes Secretary Vince Dizon, grinning like a man who just found a gas mask, to deliver the administration’s most pristine, feel-good headline of the week: a sidewalk project in Naga City.

Not just any sidewalk, mind you. It is a solar-lit, Persons with Disabilities (PWD)-accessible, tree-covered, bike-laned active transport paradise. It is personally blessed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and graciously received by his once-bitter rival, Mayor Leni Robredo.

It is a genuinely good project. It is legally sound. It is, in the words of the President, “all-out supported.”

“SARO for Naga, Subpoena for Sara: The Timing Nobody’s Supposed to Notice”

And that, precisely, is the scandal. Not a peso of this project screams “insertion” on the public record. The scandal is the grotesque, magnificent irony of why this good thing is happening now, and who is delivering it.

This is not a critique of a sidewalk. This is an evisceration of a political Houdini act. A positive project is being used as a shield by a scandal-plagued administration and a terminally embarrassed department desperate to change the channel from plunder to pedestrian safety.

Dissecting the Theatrical Farce

Let us dissect the key actors in this theatrical farce of cooperative governance.

The Exorcist Who Needs Exorcising

First, Secretary Vince Dizon, the DPWH’s self-appointed exorcist. He has publicly sworn to purge the department’s “bad eggs,” even filing graft complaints against his own personnel. Yet the man fronting this model of transparent infrastructure carries shadows that no amount of solar-powered streetlights can fully illuminate.

The first shadow is the oldest and most stubborn. In December 2025, Batangas Representative Leandro Leviste publicly accused Secretary Vince Dizon of orchestrating insertions in controversial flood-control infrastructure projects funded through the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA)—the very agency Dizon headed from 2016 to 2021.

Dizon called the allegations “baseless and malicious.” The BCDA issued its own statement swearing no such discretionary funds exist. Malacañang called for a probe, and the Office of the Ombudsman is now examining the so-called “Cabral files.”

These are documents that Leviste allegedly and forcibly obtained from the office of the late former Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Undersecretary Catalina Cabral. All very dramatic. All conveniently unresolved.

The allegations hang in the humid air like a half-finished overpass—neither demolished nor completed, just there, casting a shadow over every ribbon-cutting ceremony Dizon attends.

The second shadow is the department he now leads. In March 2026, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian revealed that the DPWH had not bid out a single project under that year’s budget.

Not one. An entire agency with zero competitive bids is a statistical impossibility in a functioning bureaucracy, but a Tuesday afternoon in this one.

The third shadow is the ghost of the flood-control scandal itself, the very species of project Leviste’s allegations concern. The DPWH’s own September 2025 complaint against Bulacan 1st District Engineering Office personnel and contractors proves the department can recognize corruption when it wants to.

The complaint alleged violations of Republic Act (RA) 3019 (the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act), Article 217 (Malversation of Public Funds), and RA 9184 (the Government Procurement Reform Act).

But recognizing corruption and rooting it out are different skills entirely. The jury remains sequestered on whether Dizon possesses the latter.

So here stands the Secretary, accused of insertions in the very category of projects that brought his agency to its knees. He is now leading a department that could not bid out a calendar, jointly unveiling a “model project” that is supposed to restore our faith in both.

The irony is so thick you could pave a national highway with it. And given the DPWH’s procurement track record, someone probably already has, twice, at three times the cost.

Pink Socks, Sharp Knives

Then we have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., a term-limited leader watching the Duterte political machine rev up for 2028. He faces an impeachment trial limping along and his own satisfaction ratings scraping the bottom of the barrel.

His support for this project is a masterclass in political judo, using an opponent’s weight against a mutual enemy. By donning those now-infamous pink socks and blessing a Robredo-branded project, Marcos is not being a statesman.

He is executing a hostile takeover of the “good governance” narrative. He is neutralizing a credible opposition figure by making her a cooperative prop in his administration’s showcase, all while building an unspoken alliance against the Dutertes.

This is not national unity; it is a tactical merger disguised as an infrastructure blessing. The “full national government support” pledge is a brilliant political play because it is literally impossible to attack.

How do you criticize a PWD-compliant sidewalk? You cannot, which is exactly why it is the perfect weapon.

The Moral High Ground, Leased

And what of Mayor Leni Robredo, the people’s champion, now finding herself in a Faustian photo-op? Her dilemma is the sharpest. She is doing precisely what a good mayor should: securing national resources for her city’s benefit and serving as a “proof of concept” for people-centered urbanism.

Her legal and ethical grounding is unassailable. Yet, the political optics are a trap of Marcos’s design. Every joint appearance, every grateful acceptance of a Special Allotment Release Order (SARO), risks eroding the moral high ground that defines her brand.

This is especially true for an opposition base that views the Marcos administration as the enemy of transparency. She is being weaponized, with her own sincere commitment to service as the ammunition, to project an image of an inclusive, post-partisan administration.

This arrangement is low risk for her only as long as she remains a local mayor. The moment this is read as an audition for a Department of Transportation (DOTr) cabinet post—a rumor already circulated by Rappler—she becomes a formal validator of the very administration she spent 2022 campaigning against.

The Fragile Legal Architecture

Let us even drill down into the project’s legal architecture for a deeper, more pathetic truth. The Manila Bulletin report and Dizon’s presentation frame the PWD-accessible ramps and tactile pavements as visionary features.

This is a lie dressed up as innovation. These are not visionary; they are statutory floor requirements under Batas Pambansa Blg. 344, as amended by Republic Act (RA) 10070. This is a law the DPWH has largely ignored for decades.

The government is taking a victory lap for finally complying with a decades-old legal mandate. Furthermore, this grand model has no permanent statutory foundation. There is no “Active Transport Act” codified by Congress.

It rests on a General Appropriations Act (GAA) special provision and executive whim. It is as fragile as the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) was before Araullo v. Aquino III gutted it.

A future Department of Budget and Management (DBM) circular can extinguish this national “model” program with a single pen stroke. This is a Potemkin village built not on a law, but on a budget line-item, sold to the public as a brick-and-mortar revolution.

Three Core Demands for Transparency

Therefore, the cave demands three core commitments, the failure of which will confirm this entire affair as the sham we suspect it to be:

  1. Full and merciless transparency. We demand the online publication of every bidding document, post-qualification report, and the specific SARO for this project, down to the itemized cost of a solar-powered lightbulb. Prove this was not a rushed, negotiated deal to manufacture a headline for a secretary in crisis.
  2. A demonstrable commitment to equitable treatment. Show us the “full support” packages being offered with equal fanfare to Local Government Units (LGUs) led by non-opposition mayors, or better yet, to ones in the bailiwicks of his own loyalists. If this is policy and not political patronage, where is the Malacañang press release for a sidewalk in a Duterte stronghold?
  3. Measurable, audited public benefits. The project’s success shall not be measured by how many times Dizon smiles next to Robredo. It must be measured by published quarterly metrics: pedestrian count increases, cyclist safety figures, and PWD access audits, all validated by the Commission on Audit (COA).

If the administration wants to call this a “model,” it must submit it to the rigors of an academic review, not just a press release.

The Bigger Screen

To the Filipino youth and the hopeful public, look at this project and cheer it. A safer, walkable Naga Avenue is a genuine public good. But train your eyes on the bigger screen.

In this Republic, a single properly-bid sidewalk becomes a national political event. This is the reality of a system so rotted by the plunder and patronage of the flood-control era that a basic act of legal compliance by the DPWH is treated as a miracle.

Let the sidewalk be built, and build it well. But do not let its solar panels blind you to the shadow play behind them. Justice, in this nation, is not a protected bike lane; it is a pothole every motorist dodges until the Senate decides it is time to issue a new subpoena.

Demand genuine democratic institutions, not just photo ops. Otherwise, in two years, we will only be left with a very nice sidewalk and the very same unprosecuted plunderers, walking scot-free on it.

Key Citations

A. Legal & Official Sources

B. News Articles

C. Official Websites

Louis ‘Barok’ C Biraogo

Leave a comment

Hello,

I’m Louis ‘Barok’ Biraogo

Let’s connect

Join the fun!

Stay updated with our latest tutorials and ideas by joining our newsletter.

Recent posts