Ghost Projects and the Specter of Accountability
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Title: Ghost Projects and the Specter of Accountability: Infrastructure Corruption and the Reimagination of Punitive Governance in the Philippines
Abstract:
This essay investigates the proliferation of ghost infrastructure projects in the Philippines, particularly within flood control programs, and the legislative momentum to reimpose the death penalty for corruption. Drawing from publicly available government reports, Senate proceedings, and civil society responses, it examines how infrastructural failure becomes a site of political contestation, moral outrage, and juridical recalibration. The ghost project phenomenon is situated within a broader postcolonial critique of state-building, economic sabotage, and the ethics of punitive governance.
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I. Introduction: Infrastructure as Spectacle and Spectre
Infrastructural development in the Philippines has long been positioned as a symbol of national progress and state capacity. Yet, recent revelations of ghost flood control projects—nonexistent or substandard structures falsely reported as completed—have exposed systemic betrayal of public trust. These projects, often inserted into the national budget through opaque processes, reveal not only technical negligence but deliberate acts of plunder. Investigations have uncovered billions of pesos lost to corruption, implicating contractors and government officials across multiple regions.
The collapse of a ₱94-million flood control project in Bulacan, which was never built despite being marked as completed, exemplifies this crisis. The implicated contractor was among those flagged for cornering a disproportionate share of flood mitigation contracts. These revelations have catalyzed a legislative push to reimpose the death penalty for plunder, marking a dramatic shift in the state's punitive posture.
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II. Ghost Projects as Economic Sabotage
Ghost infrastructure projects—those that exist only on paper or are built with substandard materials—have become emblematic of a deeper crisis in public governance. These projects are often funded through budget insertions and unprogrammed allocations, bypassing feasibility studies and coordination with technical agencies. The result is a landscape littered with hollow infrastructure: walls that crack within months, drainage systems that worsen flooding, and revetments that disintegrate before serving their purpose.
This phenomenon is not merely a technical failure; it constitutes economic sabotage only a fraction of the allocated funds reach actual construction, with the remainder siphoned off through collusion among contractors, district engineers, and political patrons. Infrastructure becomes a ghostly archive of state violence—visible yet hollow, monumental yet meaningless.
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III. Legislative Response: Death Penalty as Spectacle of Justice
In response to these revelations, a bill was filed in early September 2025 proposing the reimposition of the death penalty by lethal injection for the crime of plunder. The bill revives provisions from previously repealed legislation and frames corruption as a crime warranting capital punishment. Its proponents argue that public officials who enrich themselves at the expense of national suffering must face the ultimate penalty.
This legislative move marks a significant departure from previous anti-corruption efforts, which emphasized institutional reform and civil society oversight. It reimagines justice not as rehabilitation or restitution, but as retribution. The urgency of the bill is tied directly to the ghost project investigations, positioning death as a moral and political response to infrastructural betrayal.
However, human rights advocates and legal scholars have expressed concern over the proposal, citing the Philippines’ international commitments to abolish capital punishment. They argue that systemic corruption is best addressed through transparency, institutional reform, and public empowerment—not through extreme punitive measures.
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IV. Temporal Mapping: From Revelation to Legislation
The timeline of events reveals a rapid escalation from investigative exposure to legislative action:
- Mid-August 2025: A national platform is launched for public auditing of flood control projects.
- Late August 2025: Senate hearings confirm ghost projects in multiple provinces.
- Early September 2025: Academic institutions report flooding linked to substandard infrastructure, prompting scholarly scrutiny.
- September 3, 2025: A bill is filed proposing the death penalty for plunder.
- September 4–6, 2025: Civil society and legal experts respond with calls for systemic reform and ethical governance.
This compressed timeline illustrates how infrastructural failure catalyzes juridical imagination. Ghost projects become both evidence and affect—proof of corruption and provocation for justice.
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V. Ethical and Postcolonial Reflections
From a postcolonial perspective, the ghost project crisis reflects the unfinished project of decolonial state-building. Infrastructure, once a colonial tool of control and spectacle, now becomes a site of betrayal and resistance. The proposed death penalty, while framed as justice, risks replicating colonial logics of punishment and erasure. It obscures the need for structural reform, participatory governance, and ethical reconstruction.
Moreover, ghost projects expose the fragility of memory and accountability. These structures, falsely documented and prematurely celebrated, become ghostly archives—monuments to absence, records of theft. They demand not only juridical response but also cultural reckoning. How do we remember what was never built? How do we archive betrayal?
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VI. Conclusion: Toward a Counter-Archive of Accountability
The ghost project investigations and the proposed death penalty bill mark a critical juncture in Philippine governance. They reveal the depth of infrastructural corruption and the state’s shifting response—from reform to retribution. Yet, as civil society and human rights advocates remind us, justice must be more than punishment. It must be memory, transparency, and transformation.
In this context, artists, scholars, and cultural workers have a role to play in building counter-archives—annotated, trauma-informed, and speculative infrastructures that resist erasure and spectacle. The ghost projects, while hollow in form, are full in meaning. They call us to remember, to resist, and to rebuild.
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Amiel Gerald Roldan
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Amiel Gerald A. Roldan: a multidisciplinary Filipino artist, poet, researcher, and cultural worker whose practice spans painting, printmaking, photography, installation, academic writing, and trauma-informed mythmaking. He is deeply rooted in cultural memory, postcolonial critique, and speculative cosmology, and in bridging creative practice with scholarly infrastructure—building counter-archives, annotating speculative poetry like Southeast Asian manuscripts, and fostering regional solidarity through ethical collaboration.
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