The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Tuesday confirmed that the number of identified “ghost” or non-existent flood-control projects in the country has climbed to 252 following expanded inspections.

In a press conference at Camp Crame, AFP spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla said that the number was from the 10,000 infrastructure sites they inspected, according to the report of RH Edniel Parrosa on DZRH.

“There were 30,000 projects that were teamed for the Armed Forces of the PNP collectively to inspect from these 30,000, 10,000 na ‘yung ating na-inspect from the site of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and it turned out that a total of around 252 of these na mga naikot na po namin are ghost project from 2016 to present,” Padilla said.

All identified ghost projects reportedly fall within the period from 2016 to the present.

Earlier, AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Romeo Brawner revealed in a DZRH interview that over 60 such projects had been initially discovered.

Beyond the already-inspected batch, the AFP and the Philippine National Police (PNP) are preparing to examine an additional 20,000 infrastructure projects across the country.

“Patuloy kaming nagkoconduct ng mga inspections on our end to complete the required vast to inspect all 30,000 projects,” she added.

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) earlier sought technical assistance from both the AFP and PNP to fast-track the verification of suspected anomalous infrastructure projects nationwide.

Recently, Brawner personally visited the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ici) to attend an asset recovery meeting as part of continuing efforts to uncover and address possible corruption in public works.