QUEZON CITY, Philippines — Former Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) engineer John Carlo Rivera testified on Tuesday, October 27, that incumbent Leyte 1st District Representative and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez did not appear on his final roster of flood control project proponents in Bulacan.
Rivera revealed the information during the seventh bail hearing for Romualdez before the Sandiganbayan Third Division, which centers on a massive ₱7.4-billion plunder case involving alleged infrastructure kickbacks. Under defense questioning, Rivera verified that the lawmaker’s name was completely absent from the documents he compiled.
According to Rivera, former DPWH Bulacan First District Engineer Henry Alcantara directed him to consolidate various flood control initiatives and track down the individuals who proposed or endorsed them.
The resulting list featured several prominent political figures, including fugitive and former Ako Bicol Party-list Representative Zaldy Co, former DPWH Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo, Senator Jinggoy Estrada, and former Senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr.
Rivera noted that compiling this inventory fell outside his standard duties as a DPWH engineer, which were strictly limited to implementing and monitoring infrastructure projects.
Furthermore, the former engineer claimed he helped funnel at least ₱5 billion in alleged kickback commitments to Alcantara spanning from 2022 to 2025. He explained that these disbursements accounted for 25% of the total cost of infrastructure projects across Bulacan.
According to Rivera, Alcantara allegedly handed the cash over to Co, who then managed the distribution among the project proponents.
To facilitate the transactions, Rivera stated that he frequently joined contractors during money drop-offs to Alcantara, adding that Alcantara supplied the contractors’ contact details for coordination purposes.
During the hearing, Rivera also detailed the massive financial scale of Bulacan infrastructure projects recorded between 2022 and 2025. Total project values reached ₱519 million in 2022, surged to ₱12.93 billion in 2023, climbed to ₱14.19 billion in 2024, and totaled ₱7.385 billion in 2025.
He clarified that these figures reflect overall project budgets rather than the total sums allegedly siphoned off as kickbacks.