If you thought the massive flood control scandal was the worst it could get, you were wrong. Brace yourself, because what senators just uncovered during a routine budget hearing is so brazen, so astronomically expensive, and so systemically rotten that it has left the entire nation speechless. This isn’t just another case of government “misspending”—this is a colossal, multi-billion-dollar operation that has turned a program for the nation’s poorest farmers into a high-speed pipeline for personal enrichment.

They were called “Farm-to-Market Roads,” a lifeline meant to help struggling farmers get their produce to towns and cities. But after this bombshell exposé, they are now being called by their real name: “Farm-to-Pocket Roads.”

And the price tag is so unbelievable, it sounds like a typo. But it’s not.

The scandal erupted during what was supposed to be a standard, boring review of the Department of Agriculture (DA) budget. Senators began looking at the line items for these rural roads and what they found was not just waste, but a level of overpricing that one senator described as “like building a bridge.”

Here are the numbers that stopped the hearing cold: Simple, one-meter stretches of cemented road, which should cost around P15,000, were being billed to taxpayers for P300,000 to P400,000 per meter.

Let that sink in. That is not a 10% or 20% markup. That is an exponential increase, more than 20 times the actual value. In Camarines Sur, projects were found costing P266,000 per meter. Another hit P103,000 per meter. This isn’t just a few isolated cases; senators quickly identified this as a systemic, widespread bleed.

When senators added up the damage for just two years—2023 and 2024—the total came to a staggering P100.3 BILLION.

To put that number in perspective, one senator calculated that P100.3 billion is enough to build an entire modern highway connecting Manila all the way to Aparri, a project that would serve millions of Filipinos. Instead, that money has vanished into a black hole of overpriced, two-lane roads in the countryside.

What makes this scandal “mas malala” (far worse) than the flood control scheme is the terrifying combination of its scale and its methodology. Investigators and senators on the floor immediately recognized the playbook. This wasn’t a new idea; it was the exact same system that was used to siphon billions from the nation’s flood control projects.

But the most shocking moment of the hearing came from the Department of Agriculture Secretary himself. When pressed by senators, the Secretary, who appeared genuinely “shocked” by the astronomical figures, made a bombshell admission. He was asked why the DA didn’t just implement these road projects themselves. His answer? They chose not to, he said, because they “did not want to be implicated in scandals.”

This single admission implies that the corruption was so rampant and so well-known that the head of the entire department knew to stay away from it. It suggests a rogue, powerful force was pushing these projects through, with or without the DA’s blessing. In fact, the Secretary confirmed that many of these hyper-inflated projects proceeded without the DA’s formal signature or approval.

So, if the DA wasn’t in control, who was?

The investigation is now pointing to powerful political forces. The worst-hit regions are Region 5 (Bicol) and Region 8 (Eastern Visayas), where the overpricing runs into the billions. Senators are now publicly pointing to contractors who are “allegedly connected to a well-known official from the Chamber (House of Representatives) who also comes from Bicol.”

And, in a twist that surprises no one, the names of two companies linked to the infamous former Congressman “Saldico”—a key figure in the flood control scandal—are once again being implicated in this new scheme. This isn’t just a similar scandal; it appears to be a direct continuation, run by the same network, just under a different government department.

The rot doesn’t even end there. The DA Secretary also confirmed the existence of “ghost projects”—roads that were funded in 2021 and 2022 in Davao Occidental and Zamboanga City but were never even built.

Now, the cover-up is in full swing. Just as the investigation is gaining traction, a political war has broken out to silence the key whistleblower, Bryce Hernandez. One senator, instead of probing the P100 billion loss, is now aggressively filing perjury cases against Hernandez, a move that critics are calling a “tactical move” to destroy the witness’s credibility and “kill the investigation.”

Fears are also mounting that the newly appointed Ombudsman, rather than prosecuting this massive theft, could be used as a “protection” for the high-level officials involved.

While this political battle rages in Manila, the nation’s farmers, the very people this P100.3 billion was meant to help, continue to struggle, their produce rotting in fields because they cannot get it to market. The lifeline they were promised was never a lifeline at all. It was just a “Farm-to-Pocket” scheme, and the pocket belongs to someone else.