Leadership | Find Expensive Projects that are Never There
Vanishing Infrastructure: The Anatomy and Prevention of Government “Ghost Projects” Imagine standing on a muddy bank in Bulacan, the humid air of the Central Luzon plains thick with the scent of upcoming rain. According to the official Multi-Year Planning and Scheduling (MYPS) records of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), you should be standing atop a state-of-the-art reinforced concrete river wall—a multi-million peso shield designed to protect the residents of Calumpit from the seasonal wrath of the Pampanga River. Instead, your boots sink into undisturbed silt. There is no concrete. There is no shield. There is only a field of weeds and a paper trail that claims the project is "100% complete." This is the visceral reality of the "ghost project," a form of architectural gaslighting that has haunted the Philippine landscape from the mountains of Kalinga to the marshes of Lanao del Sur. It is a phenomenon where the machinery of the state grinds no...