Before the President’s announcement of the 15 contractors that cornered flood control projects, St. Timothy Construction Co. was thought of as just one of those obscure construction firms doing seawall protection and flood control projects in Palawan.
The company, however, further shot to national prominence with its inclusion as one of five contractors with projects nationwide.
Owned by the family of Rowena Discaya, who is best remembered as Mayor Vico Sotto’s rival in the last elections, the company is also reputedly close to some powerful politicians.
But prominence and political heft are not always guarantees of excellent project implementation.
A case in point is St. Timothy’s seawall project in Pangobilian, Brooke’s Point.
Started in August 2024, it was completed and turned over to the provincial government on March 20, 2025.
But in July, or barely four months after its completion, the Provincial Engineering Office received several reports that a critical section of the 80-meter-long seawall project had collapsed!
Further investigation by a team of engineers from the Capitol found out that the “primary cause of the collapse was the base scour, which lead to the exposure of the footing foundation of the seawall.”
To the man on the street, “base scour” is simply the washing away of support materials at the foot of a seawall, which makes the structure unstable and is considered a critical construction defect.
The report of the team further claims that the scour and the undermining of the base were intensified by big waves due to successive typhoons that hit the province recently.
With “strong wave action” as the primary cause of the collapse, one has every reason to worry about the fate of the other seawall project of the company in far-flung Caponayan Island in Cuyo. Constantly pounded by big waves at any time of the year, is this another project of St. Timothy waiting to collapse?
And one final test: Did the engineers of St. Timothy also apply the same sloppy engineering and shoddy construction which are the hallmarks of its collapsed seawall in Pangobilian?
As President Bongbong Marcos cried out during his SONA: MAHIYA NAMAN KAYO!
