Vince taps CAR director to head Bicol public works

By Manuel Tugalde

LEGAZPI CITY --- Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Vince Dizon has tapped the regional director of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) to take over the Bicol Region, long tagged as a hotbed of corruption and insider contractors.

Bicol DPWH Regional Director Virgilio Eduarte has reportedly been reassigned to the Office of the Secretary, along with Assistant Regional Director Annie de la Vega. De la Vega, who hails from Surigao, had been in Bicol for barely four months.

Incoming Bicol officials are expected to be CAR Regional Director Kadaffy Tanggol and Davao-based District Engineer Ferdinand Dallo, who has been appointed assistant regional director. An insider said the two may assume their posts anytime this week or next.

The leadership shake-up comes amid a tight probe by the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), which has placed the Bicol Region under close scrutiny following reports that infrastructure projects worth billions of pesos were, for decades, allegedly decided at the behest of corrupt politicians in collusion with district engineers in exchange for hefty kickbacks. Under the 2025 General Appropriations Act, Bicol received a dominant ₱86 billion allocation.

ICI is currently probing 16 DPWH district engineering offices in Bicol over alleged ghost flood-control projects, substandard works, and overpriced contracts. Two construction firms operating in the region were earlier named by President Marcos among the country’s top 15 notorious contractors that allegedly bagged billions of pesos in government projects, including flood-control works.

Both Tanggol and Dallo are reportedly Dizon’s personal choices to clean up the Bicol DPWH.

The probe has been accompanied by a series of shocking incidents within the department. On November 13, a 60-year-old Engineer III, who also served as chair of the Bids and Awards Committee at the Sorsogon First District Engineering Office, committed suicide by hanging, allegedly due to stress linked to the ICI investigation.

This was followed by the death of another engineer assigned to the DPWH regional office planning division in Legazpi, who, according to a district engineer speaking on condition of anonymity, also suffered from stress and depression related to the probe. The source claimed the death was a suicide but was “disguised or shielded as a health issue to prevent a damaging controversy.”

Former regional director Eduarte, however, debunked this claim, citing an autopsy report that attributed the death to a heart condition.

A third suicide occurred on November 18, involving senior undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral, who reportedly jumped from a 30-meter-deep cliff along Kennon Road in Benguet. The area was the site of a P250-million slope protection project earlier declared useless by President Marcos.

In a related development, Dizon also appointed former Albay district engineer Simon Arias as DPWH regional director for Region 7, replacing controversial official Danilo Villa, who has been placed under lifestyle check. Villa, a former Albay Second District engineer, was reported to have allegedly purchased the Legazpi Galleria cockpit—known for hosting national derbies—for P200 million.

Arias, however, was previously described as the district engineer who fled his Catanduanes assignment last year, reportedly unable to withstand political pressure in a province long considered a “red flag” posting for DPWH officials. He was the fourth district engineer to leave Catanduanes since the 2022 elections without officially filing a leave of absence.

A week before Dizon announced his initial round of appointments, Eduarte said that if he were to be replaced after his five-year stint in Bicol, he would leave with “a degree of pride,” stressing that the ICI probe had not identified Bicol among regions with ghost projects. Of the 412 ghost flood-control projects uncovered nationwide, Eduarte said none were in Bicol.

Eduarte’s claim was supported by members of his staff, who said that during his five years as regional director, the long-standing reputation of Bicol DPWH as a haven of insider contractors had been reduced, if not eradicated.

It may be recalled that three groups of Bicol contractors had petitioned Malacañang during the Arroyo administration to subject the region’s DPWH to a thorough plunder probe, citing alleged control of projects by insider contractors in connivance with regional and district engineers down to job-order workers.

Dizon, for his part, said the Bicol DPWH had miserably failed to improve the badly damaged Andaya Highway, a vital section of the Maharlika Highway linking Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

Early in 2024, a Camarines Sur–based engineer wrote an open letter describing Bicol roads as among the poorest in quality compared with those in regions such as Palawan and Mindanao, where roads reportedly last longer before cracking. Published in Bicol Mail, the letter noted that in Camarines Sur—home to five district engineering offices—roads often develop cracks within the first year after repair or re-blocking.

In Camarines Norte, residents were even photographed planting vegetation in unattended, widened potholes along national roads to warn motorists of the hazardous conditions.