Photo credit: PCO

Public accountability is essential in safeguarding taxpayer funds and ensuring that government projects deliver real benefits. Oversight and inspections are meant to prevent fraud and protect public interest. But when scrutiny shifts from corrective to punitive, it can become a weapon rather than a safeguard.

This tension is increasingly felt in government infrastructure projects, where heightened vigilance has coincided with growing operational strain. Roads, flood control systems, and public facilities do not move on paper alone. They are built on the ground through phased construction, multiple contractors, and dense layers of documentation. In such an environment, even small administrative misalignments can snowball into serious disruptions.

Recent joint verifications led by the Department of Public Works and Highways illustrate this reality. In Bulacan, inspections involving DPWH engineers and private contractors showed that several flood control projects initially flagged as questionable were, in fact, physically present and operational. The discrepancies arose not from contractor negligence but from incorrect grid coordinates submitted by DPWH itself, an error publicly acknowledged by Secretary Vince Dizon. Contractors, who mobilized workers, procured materials, and completed the work, suffered delays, payment freezes, and undue scrutiny due to the government’s own administrative lapses.

When contractors bear the consequences of government misgivings, accountability becomes misdirected. Administrative shortcomings inadvertently penalize firms that have fully complied with contracts and delivered work on site. The economic cost is real: delayed disbursements disrupt cash flow, stall procurement, and slow construction schedules.

Workers lose man-days. Small suppliers and provincial hardware stores face order cancellations. Entire project ecosystems feel the impact, even when no wrongdoing has been established. Oversight intended to protect public interest inadvertently undermines it.

To be clear, scrutiny itself is necessary. Investigations and audits play a vital role in maintaining institutional integrity. But due process demands restraint, context, and proportionality.

Preliminary findings are not verdicts. Red flags are not convictions.

Weaponized scrutiny occurs when assumptions harden faster than facts. When payment freezes precede verification. When public narratives form before joint inspections confirm the situation and when administrative lapses within government systems are quietly transferred onto contractors’ balance sheets.

A recalibration is urgently needed.

Verification should move alongside implementation, not trail it with suspicion. Data systems must be corrected as rigorously as they are enforced. Most importantly, accountability should follow responsibility. Contractors should answer for their work. Government agencies should answer for their errors.

Public infrastructure succeeds when trust exists across the chain from planners to builders and communities. Oversight that corrects strengthens this trust. Oversight that punishes without precision erodes it.
Government scrutiny should protect public funds, not weaponize process.

The difference is not semantic, it is operational, financial, and ultimately civic.