The scandal over anomalous flood control projects has reached the University of the Philippines Diliman. Across the campus, buildings long promised to students, faculty, and staff have inched upward only to stall, some left crumbling midway. Some of those declared finished are dogged by complaints of substandard work, while the unfinished, years overdue, stand shrouded in blue tarpaulins and overgrown grass, their scaffoldings and skeletal frames already weathered before completion.

The Faculty Center, the College of Arts and Letters Building, the Institute of Islamic Studies Complex, the College of Human Kinetics Swimming Pool and Arena are but some of the unfinished ones. Pandemic lockdowns stalled some of these projects, yes, but it has been five years since the first stoppages. The reasons offered, if any, do not satisfy. While a few projects are now in their homestretch, many remain stuck halfway.

The Faculty Center, for instance, razed by fire in April 2016, was promised resurrection with nearly P600 million in the 2017 General Appropriations Act, and another P74 million the year after. This is based on publicly available data from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). Faculty Center’s Phase 1 is about 94 percent done, while Phase 2 barely scratches 13 percent.

The Institute of Islamic Studies Complex, meanwhile, cannot even claim pandemic delays. Work began only in October 2023, with a completion date of July 2024. That deadline has since been punted to March 2026. Two years in, about 20 percent complete.

The data from DPWH paints the dire situation for these projects: of (at least) 14 ongoing DPWH projects in UP Diliman, nine are already overdue, two are at risk of being overdue, and only two can be considered (nearly) complete.

On Monday, September 15, I went around the campus to see for myself. Some sites showed signs of progress. Others – for instance, the College of Human Kinetics Swimming Pool and Arena – remained bare bones despite official reports declaring Phase 1 at 90 percent and Phase 2 at 66 percent. The government tarpaulin announcing “Where your taxes go,” crumpled and rolled up against a wall, was so worn that I had to unfurl it for a photo. According to it, Phase 2 began in July 2022 and should have ended by May 2023. More than two years later, it is still skeletal.

The problem goes beyond construction delays. With DPWH’s anomalous flood control projects unraveling nationwide, the same contractors keep surfacing inside UP.

The Discayas’ Alpha & Omega Contractor and Development Corp. – named by President Marcos Jr. as among the country’s top ten flood control contractors – was awarded to construct a P55.6 million “Academic Multipurpose Building” in Diliman in 2019. Another Discaya company, St. Gerrard Construction, tried (and thankfully failed) to win the CAL Building Phase 3 contract in 2023. Elite General Contractor and Development Corp., also owned by the Discayas, is building the School of Urban and Regional Planning’s new building, almost finished but now uncertain after DPWH suspended Elite General’s license along with that of other Discaya companies.

The Discayas are not alone, though. Centerways Construction and Development Corp., led by Lawrence Lubiano (alleged P30 million campaign donor to Sen. Chiz Escudero) built a “multipurpose building” in Diliman for P40.1 million and joined the P44.6 million renovation of Abelardo Hall at the College of Music.

(These entanglements stretch beyond Diliman. In UP Manila, the failed renovation of Rizal Hall was first awarded to the Discayas’ St. Timothy Construction, then turned over to the Lubianos’ Centerways in joint venture with FS Co Builders and Supply, owned by Farida Co – sister of Rep. Elizaldy Co, then chair of the House Committee on Appropriations, and Rep. Christopher “Kito” Co. Farida Co signed the Rizal Hall contract while already a candidate for Albay vice governor, a post she later won in May 2025.)

The web of connections is thick, the delays – let’s call them failures – undeniable. And yet, accountability remains missing.

Yesterday, UP announced it would assume control of stalled projects, singling out the Faculty Center and the UP Main Library’s Gonzalez Hall. The post on Facebook about this was quietly deleted hours later, after drawing sharp comments online. Still, it echoes earlier statements by the Angelo Jimenez administration that UP would take matters into its own hands regarding these projects.

The timing is telling, though. This is less than a week after thousands of students filled AS Steps in an anti-corruption rally, and days before the September 21 protest at Luneta. So the questions remain: What about the contractors who failed to deliver? Will DPWH answer for the delays? Where did the billions in taxpayer money go?

On campus, the unfinished buildings stand as mute, concrete reminders. Outside, the protests grow louder.