During a bail hearing at the Sandiganbayan on Monday, November 9, a Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) official testified that former House Speaker and incumbent Leyte 1st District Representative Martin Romualdez was listed as the proponent for 444 infrastructure projects worth over ₱27 billion in the 2025 national budget.
Engineer Peter Paul Cortez, chief of the DPWH Programming Division, told the anti-graft court’s Third Division that the ₱27,430,696,000 worth of projects “just appeared in the GAA (General Appropriations Act) without passing through the DPWH”.
Responding to questions from Sandiganbayan Third Division Chairperson Associate Justice Karl Miranda, Cortez confirmed that none of the 444 projects were included in either the agency’s annual budget proposal (ABP) or the National Expenditure Program (NEP), leaving them without supporting documentation.
“All projects,” Cortez told Associate Justice Karl Miranda.
According to Cortez, the late Public Works Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral instructed his staff to list Romualdez and former Ako Bicol Party-list Representative Zaldy Co—who formerly chaired the House Committee on Appropriations—as proponents of the projects inserted into the approved budget.
Typically, project proposals reached the agency through formal letters from lawmakers before being recorded in a database.
Romualdez is currently detained at the New Quezon City Jail in Payatas as he seeks bail in connection with a plunder case involving an alleged ₱7.4-billion kickback scheme tied to government flood control and infrastructure projects.
During cross-examination, defense lawyers argued that Romualdez had no direct involvement in the insertions, highlighting Cortez’s testimony that the directive to name Romualdez as a proponent came entirely from Undersecretary Cabral.