All the Presidents’ Contractors: For 20 years, Malacañang has been unable or unwilling to stop corruption in public works

['Philippine Center For Investigative Journalism', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Vertical-Align Middle .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar Is .Alignleft .Alignright'] PCIJ.org 2025-09-04 00:00:00

For the past 20 years, across four presidential terms, the same contractors have been awarded the largest public works contracts. Through those years, the PCIJ has tracked the anomalous practices in public works contracting. Under Duterte, of the top 10 contractors, three had been suspended or blacklisted, including one for submitting fake tax clearance certificates. In 2007, the World Bank conducted a three-month investigation on road projects that it had funded and found systemic corruption and collusion in the awarding of those contracts. It found evidence of a well-organized cartel of contractors actively supported by government officials improperly influenced contract awards and set inflated bid prices of road projects.