Chiz Escudero’s top campaign donor bags P5.16 billion in flood control projects
By James Patrick Cruz | Rappler | August 11, 2025
More than half of Centerways Construction’s flood control projects have been in Senator Chiz Escudero’s home province of Sorsogon and within his district
It’s raining flood control project contracts for Senate President Chiz Escudero’s biggest campaign backer.
Lawrence R. Lubiano — the president of Centerways Construction and Development Inc. — was Escudero’s top donor in the 2022 elections, dropping P30 million into the senator’s campaign funds, based on his official Statement of Contributions and Expenditures. That’s 20% of P146.5 million cash contributions received by Escudero.
Fast forward to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration, Centerways Construction is swimming in government deals.
From 2021 to 2024, the company reeled in P5.16 billion worth of flood control projects. The Sorsogon-based construction firm only had five flood control contracts in 2021, but in 2022, it secured 44 contracts, a nearly ninefold jump.
Centerways Construction ranked seventh among the top 15 flood control project contractors named by President Marcos for the period July 2022 to May 2025.
And guess where majority of the work is happening? 96% of Centerways Construction’s projects from 2021 to 2024 are in the Bicol region, three others are in Central Visayas.
Of the 54 projects in Sorsogon, 36 are in the first district, Escudero’s long-time political turf. Since 1987, it has been ruled in turns by Chiz, his father Salvador, his mother Evelina, and his sister Maria Bernadette.
Before Chiz returned to the Senate in 2022, he served as governor of Sorsogon from 2019 to 2022.
President Marcos, in his last State of the Nation Address, made a big show of vowing to crack down on corruption in flood control projects.
“Mga kickback, mga initiative, errata, SOP, for the boys. Kaya sa mga nakikipagsabwatan upang kunin ang pondo ng bayan at nakawin ang kinabukasan ng ating mga mamamayan, mahiya naman kayo sa inyong kapwa Pilipino!” Marcos said this in the grand plenary of the Batasang Pambansa.
(Kickbacks, initiatives, errata, SOP, for the boys. To those who connive to take government funds and steal the future of our people, feel some shame towards your fellow Filipinos!)
Behind him on the rostrum sat Senate President Escudero and House Speaker Martin Romualdez, the President’s cousin.
Was that just a general warning or a pointed dig at the man (or men) right behind him?
Source: Rappler
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