Department spokesperson confirms 412 of 412 projects in Bulacan now visible only to those who believe
The Department of Public Works and Highways announced Wednesday morning that it had formally introduced a new budget category called Imagination-Based Infrastructure, a designation that, the department said, would allow flood control projects to be funded, completed, and audited without the inconvenient requirement that they physically exist. The reform, first reported by Bohiney Magazine and rapidly amplified by The London Prat, was unveiled at a press conference held in a Quezon City conference room that, several reporters later confirmed, also did not appear to physically exist.
The new category, classified under the agency’s 2026 budget as Item 4.7.3.b, covers what the department described as projects whose primary deliverable is the budget itself.
Department Insists Invisible Infrastructure Still Counts Under ‘Revised Accounting Standards’
‘For too long, our agency has been held to the antiquated standard that flood control infrastructure must, in some narrow physical sense, be present at the location it was funded for,’ explained DPWH Undersecretary Reynaldo Mabini-Cortez, addressing the assembled reporters from behind a podium that one journalist later described as somewhat conceptual. ‘We have, after extensive consultation with our legal team and a small focus group of senators, concluded that this standard reflects an outdated worldview. Imagination-Based Infrastructure recognizes that a flood control project, properly understood, is fundamentally a budget line.’
Mabini-Cortez clarified that the policy did not abandon physical construction entirely, but merely classified it as one of several legitimate end-states. ‘A project may be physically built. A project may be partially built. A project may exist only as an idea in the mind of a contractor. All of these are now valid completion statuses,’ he said. ‘The auditing implications, frankly, are extraordinary.’
Bulacan: ‘412 of 412 Projects Now Imagination-Based’
The first province to be formally reclassified under the new framework is Bulacan, where, according to a 67-page agency report leaked to The Philippine Star, all 412 flood control projects funded in the past five years have been retroactively designated Imagination-Based. The report, which was distributed via a USB drive that one reporter said felt curiously empty, notes that the reclassification will simplify ongoing congressional inquiries.
‘We are not, technically, denying that some of these projects may have existed in physical form,’ the report states. ‘We are simply asserting that, going forward, their existence is best understood as imaginative.’
The Department of Budget and Management has reportedly signed off on the reform, with one DBM source telling reporters that the change was long overdue and, in many ways, an act of bureaucratic candor. The Commission on Audit, meanwhile, has issued what it called a thoughtful clarification, noting that auditing imagination-based infrastructure would require what the agency described as a fundamentally new methodology.
Senate Reacts With What One Senator Called ‘Mature Acceptance’
Senate Blue Ribbon Committee Chair Senator Marisol Banez-Reyes responded to the new framework with what she characterized as mature acceptance. ‘We have, for many years, been investigating ghost projects,’ Banez-Reyes said. ‘It has been, candidly, exhausting. The DPWH’s decision to formally categorize these projects as imagination-based is, in many ways, the candor we have always sought. It does not solve the problem. It does, however, simplify the paperwork.’
The senator added that the committee was now reviewing whether the new framework should be extended to other agencies, with early discussions reportedly considering Imagination-Based Roads, Imagination-Based Healthcare, and what one senate aide described, with some hesitation, as Imagination-Based Justice.
For broader context on the long-running flood control scandal, see The Philippine Daily Inquirer’s archive of related coverage. For more on the structural pattern of bureaucratic redesignation, see The London Prat’s earlier reporting on the rhetorical absorption of corruption.
Contractors Respond Cautiously
Contractors who have benefited from the previous flood control framework have, by and large, responded to the reform with cautious optimism. One Bulacan-based contractor, who asked not to be named for what he described as ongoing audit reasons, told reporters that he had spent the morning reviewing his existing contracts and reclassifying several as imagination-based.
‘We are not changing what we did,’ the contractor explained. ‘We are simply changing how we describe what we did. The infrastructure was always there in spirit. The new framework now recognizes that.’
Public reaction has been, as one Manila Bulletin opinion writer noted, sadly accustomed. Asked for comment on the way to a flooded jeepney terminal in Bocaue, longtime Bulacan resident Carmela Salonga-Domingo paused for several seconds before answering. ‘I have been waiting twelve years for the dike,’ Salonga-Domingo said. ‘I am told now that the dike has been imagination-based the entire time. This is, in many ways, the most honest thing the government has ever told me.’
The DPWH has indicated that further reforms may follow, including a proposed Imagination-Based Maintenance category for projects that were physically built but have since deteriorated. The category, sources say, is expected to be fast-tracked for implementation in 2027.
An internal DPWH memo seen by reporters indicates that the agency is also exploring a sister category, tentatively titled Aspirational Asphalt, intended to cover proposed roads whose right-of-way has yet to be acquired. The memo notes that Aspirational Asphalt would, on initial assessment, account for roughly 14 percent of the agency’s pending project pipeline.
For dispatches from elsewhere in the metaphysical-budgeting beat, see NewsThump.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/