President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. swears into office transportation chief Vince Dizon as the new head of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) after accepting the resignation of Secretary Manuel Bonoan amid controversial flood control projects.

Dizon took his oath as the new secretary of DPWH in Malacanang on Monday. Transportation Undersecretary Giovanni Lopez as acting secretary of the department.

In an ambush interview on Monday, Marcos said Dizon, who did a good job at the Department of Transportation (DOTr) is also familiar with the works of the DPWH.

"He's done a very good job at the DOTr. And I think he’s already set the – set the stage for all of the things that we need to do. So, he can now leave it and go to Public Works because he’s also familiar with the workings of the Department of Public Works and Highways," he said.

Marcos said Bonoan resigned "under the principle of command responsibility" noting that all the problems occurred "under his watch".

"Well, the reason… I think it was Secretary Bonoan who said that basically that he took responsibility because he was – it was under – all these things happened – all of these problems happened under his watch," he said.

"Under the principle of command responsibility, he felt that he should leave his post," he added.

In a briefing in the Palace following his oath taking, Dizon said based on the directive of Marcos, he will order the submission of courtesy resignations of all DPWH officials nationwide.

"I will execute this immediately in the coming days. First of all, my very first order will be to require courtesy resignations (of all the agency officials from) top to bottom - undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, division heads, regional directors, and district engineers nationwide. This is the first order that the President wants to be implemented," he said.

Dizon said it will be followed by a comprehensive review of all the DPWH personnel to identify and appoint good and high performing officials of the agency to the sensitive and important positions.

"I believe that there are a lot of good and high performing personnel of the DPWH. The order of the president is to look for them and appoint them in the sensitive and important positions," he said.

As Dizon was being sworn in, a contractor who is allegedly the queen of flood control projects and a suspended provincial DPWH official appeared before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee.

The lady contractor claims she has been in this business for 22 years and confirms reports that she has luxury vehicles, which she said is being used by her family.

The suspended official said he goes to the casino two or three times a week.

The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee is looking into flood control projects following heavy floods that hit Metro Manila and other provinces a few months ago.

Dizon also vowed to go after contractors of substandard and ghost projects to ensure they will not be able to make future transactions with the government.

"I will impose lifetime blacklisting, ban, immediately. If we prove that a contractor is involved in a ghost or substandard project, there will be no process or investigation, automatic that the contractor will be blacklisted for life," he said.

"And of course we will also have appropriate charges and we will submit all of these to the independent commission which will be created by the president. They will conduct investigation and file appropriate cases against the DPWH officials, contractors and others who are involved in these anomalous projects," he added. Robina Asido/DMS