South Korea suspends support for PH project over corruption concerns
South Korea's president, Lee Jae-myung, has ordered the immediate suspension of financial support for a Philippine project amid the weeks-long issue of alleged corruption in the country involving flood control projects.
An article from local news site Daum detailed that South Korea's Ministry of Strategy and Finance had refused a "700 billion won (P28 million) civil engineering project in the Philippines" due to "concerns about corruption and being deemed a poorly performing project."
This was confirmed by Lee in a statement on his Facebook page.
"It has been ordered to immediately stop proceedings for the business in question that has been identified as a fraudulent business," his translated statement read.
"The most fortunate thing is that the business has not yet been completed, so business expenses such as supporting the Foreign Economic Cooperation Fund have not been spent," it added.
Lee stressed that it was of "great significance" that the "risk of poverty and corruption" was prevented "without wasting 7 trillion won in taxes unnecessarily."
"The media is the observer of power and the salt that prevents corruption in society, it plays a key role in achieving a just world. I express my deepest gratitude to the courage and efforts of the media for spreading the truth and ensuring the people's right to know through this investigative report," he said.
According to Daum, the initiative called "PBBM (President Bongbong Marcos Jr.) Rural Modular Bridge Project" aims to build 210 bridges in Luzon, 88 in the Visayas, and 53 in Mindanao by 2028.
The goal was to "improve access to agricultural roads for farmers and their agricultural products by constructing steel modular bridges in 350 rural areas in the Philippines."
However, the MOSF had decided not to support the project as its "chances of success low primarily because of the difficulty of managing 350 construction sites."
"Because each of the 350 locations requiring modular bridge installation would have unique circumstances, management and supervision would be challenging," the news outlet reported.
On top of that, the ministry also cited the possibility of corruption and poor management as a Philippine company that participated as a local consultant for the project was found to have a "history of poor construction and corruption in similar bridge construction projects in the past."
The undisclosed company is reportedly involved in controversy due to high-priced deliveries and poor construction during a project to install 200 bridges in 1996.
"The Ministry of Strategy and Finance also confirmed suspicions that corrupt individuals, a characteristic of the Philippines' political and business collusion, were involved in the project's poor performance," the report added.
'No loan exists'
Following Lee's statement, the Philippines' Department of Finance asserted that "no such loan exists" between the two countries.
"As regards to the supposed PHP 28 billion official development assistance loan between South Korea and the Philippines, the Department of Finance categorically clarifies that no such loan exists," they stated.
"Nevertheless, we reaffirm to our bilateral partners that the Philippine government will match their trust and confidence with full transparency and accountability," they added.
The development comes as the Philippines is currently dealing with a corruption issue in its flood control projects. It began in July as the rains triggered massive flooding in the metro. At the time, Sen. Ping Lacson told dzBB that since 2011, about P1 trillion allocated for flood control projects may have been lost to corruption.
Marcos, in his fourth State of the Nation Address, called out government officials involved in the would-be corruption in flood control projects.
Marcos ordered the DPWH to "immediately submit" to him the list of flood control projects from every region that were started and completed in the last three years. He said a project monitoring committee will evaluate this list to determine the failures, as well as the unfinished and ghost projects.
Days later, Marcos launched the Sumbong sa Pangulo website, where the public can track and report anomalous flood control projects and other possible corrupt practices.
According to the website, there are 9,855 flood control projects totalling P545.64 billion since July 2022. Of that number, 6,021 projects worth over P350 billion don't specify the exact type of flood control being built, while several others in different locations also have the same contract cost.