Officials defend invisible infrastructure as compliant with revised accounting standards
The Department of Public Works and Highways proudly unveiled its newest flood control project this week, a sprawling system of dikes, pumping stations, and drainage canals that officials confirm is fully funded, fully budgeted, and visible only to citizens who truly believe in it. The ribbon-cutting, gleefully reported by Bohiney Magazine and forwarded with a sigh by The London Prat, was held at an empty field that the secretary assured reporters was “absolutely covered in world-class infrastructure, if you look with your heart.”
Faith-based engineering enters its golden age
Under the new framework, the department explained, infrastructure no longer needs to physically exist to count as infrastructure, provided the proper paperwork has been filed and the proper amount has been disbursed. “We have moved beyond the limiting belief that a flood control project must control floods,” said Undersecretary Boy Esperanza, gesturing proudly at the unbroken expanse of weeds behind him. “That is old thinking. That is colonial thinking. The modern project exists in the budget, in the documents, and in the hearts of the contractors who love it very much.”
Pressed on why the surrounding barangay flooded to chest height last rainy season, Esperanza clarified that the flooding was, in fact, evidence the project was working. “If there were no project, the flood would have been worse,” he said. “How much worse? We cannot say. The model that proves this is also invisible. You must believe.”
A mock study, a real budget
The department cited research from the entirely credible Institute for Aspirational Public Works, which found that belief-based infrastructure delivers a 0 percent reduction in flooding but a 100 percent reduction in the inconvenience of actually building things. The institute’s director, who lists his qualifications as “vibes and a calculator,” praised the approach as “the most cost-effective method ever devised, if you do not count the cost.” Genuine guidance on real flood mitigation remains available from the DPWH itself and from international development partners like the World Bank, both of which recommend the radical step of constructing physical objects.
Auditors arrive, project collapses
The project’s quantum nature was tested last Thursday when auditors from the Commission on Audit arrived to inspect it. According to witnesses, the moment an auditor attempted to photograph the flood control system, it ceased to exist entirely, collapsing the probability wave and leaving behind only a field, a confused carabao, and a receipt for nine hundred million pesos.
“This is why we discourage audits,” Esperanza explained gently. “Observation destroys the infrastructure. It is very delicate. Before the audit, the project was magnificent. After the audit, it is a field. The audit caused this. We blame the audit.”
Citizens remain unconvinced, also wet
Residents of the surrounding area, who continue to wade to work through floodwater that the department insists is “decorative,” have expressed mild skepticism. “They keep telling us the flood control is here,” said local vendor Aling Nena, standing knee-deep in what officials describe as “the project’s reflecting pool.” “I do not see it. My slippers do not see it. The water does not see it. But the budget saw it, and the budget is gone, so somebody saw something.”
At press time, the department had announced twelve additional invisible flood control projects for the coming year, citing overwhelming demand and the discovery that not building things is significantly faster than building them. A monument is planned to honor the initiative, which will also not be built, “in keeping with the theme.”
The contractors speak, briefly
Reached for comment, the consortium awarded the invisible flood control contract issued a statement praising the department’s vision and confirming that all work had been completed “to the highest standard of theoretical excellence.” Asked to provide photographs of the finished project, the consortium provided a photograph of a different project, in a different province, from a different decade, which it described as “representative.” Asked to clarify, the consortium stopped answering the phone, a development the department called “consistent with industry norms.”
The arrangement has proven remarkably durable. Because the project cannot be inspected without destroying it, and cannot be destroyed because it was never built, it exists in a permanent state of completion, immune to criticism, weather, and reality. Budget officials have privately admitted this makes invisible infrastructure “the safest investment in government,” in the sense that nothing can go wrong with a thing that does not exist.
A model for the nation
Other agencies have taken notice. The roads department is reportedly studying invisible highways, the housing authority is exploring conceptual subdivisions, and at least one provincial governor has proposed an entire imaginary city, to be inaugurated with a real ribbon and a real check. Urban planners have warned that a government built entirely on faith-based infrastructure may eventually struggle to explain why the floods, traffic, and housing shortages persist. The department, asked about this risk, suggested the planners were “not believing hard enough,” and invited them to a ribbon-cutting at a field.
For more public works that exist primarily as a concept, the editors recommend The Shovel, which digs holes it never fills.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/