The resumption on Monday of the Senate blue ribbon committee’s inquiry into the corruption scandal was marked by disclosures and denials, including Manuel Bonoan’s claim that he was unaware of and did not benefit from multibillion-peso “allocables” or kickbacks during his three-year watch as head of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
Senators did not buy Bonoan’s claim, with Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian saying the government is now in search of “criminals” because of the ex-official’s “bad leadership” of the department now at the center of the scandal involving flood control and other infrastructure projects.
Bonoan, freshly returned from a two-month stay in the United States, denied the testimony of his former undersecretary and now state witness, Roberto Bernardo, that he had amassed ₱2.2 billion in kickbacks from flood control funds.
Bernardo earlier testified that then Public Works Secretary Bonoan had told him to draw up a list of infrastructure projects worth ₱5 billion per annum in the national budgets for 2023, 2024 and 2025, with 15% percent as “commitment,” or allocable.
What annoyed Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson, who chairs the blue ribbon committee, in Bonoan’s response to Gatchalian’s questioning was Bonoan’s insistence that his role as DPWH chief was to exercise “oversight.”
“I cannot accept that because you’re hands-on, you’re the secretary,” Lacson told Bonoan. “I cannot imagine [Public Works Secretary Vince] Dizon only exercising oversight function over his department. So kindly correct that, because that’s not correct.”
Other highlights
Here are other highlights in the hearing that took more than five hours:
• DPWH officials conceded that of the 421 suspected ghost flood control projects, only 14 have been validated due to the wrong grid coordinates reported to the “Isumbong Mo sa Pangulo” website, which was used by the teams that validated the projects. But Public Works Undersecretary Ricardo Bernabe III assured the committee that this development would not affect the cases already filed in court. “Just to set the record straight, those that have been the subject of cases before the Ombudsman and Sandiganbayan are really ghost projects,” Bernabe said. Still, Public Works Undersecretary Arthur Bisnar told Sen. Risa Hontiveros that the wrong coordinates had misled the investigators. “As a result, they now face the daunting task of revisiting 10,000 projects that they had already inspected,” Bisnar said, adding: “Basically, we will restart all over.”
• Two witnesses, “Maria” and “Joy,” identified billionaire contractor Pacifico “Curlee” Discaya as the one who told them that the house in Forbes Park alleged by ex-lawmaker Zaldy Co as the drop-off point of supposed kickbacks to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was owned by former House Speaker Martin Romualdez. Discaya denied that he met them twice in February 2024 and that he represented Romualdez at all. Lacson said the witnesses’ testimony was “not enough” to implicate Romualdez, the President’s cousin, but may be used as a “lead” for investigators.
• Sen. Rodante Marcoleta and Prosecutor General Richard Anthony Fadullon squabbled anew on the failed bid of Curlee and Sarah Discaya to enter the government’s Witness Protection Program (WPP).
• It was disclosed that former Philippine National Police chief Nicolas Torre, now chair of the Metro Manila Development Authority, was called on to help secure Bernardo and his children when they initially entered a safe house arranged by Bernardo’s unnamed spiritual adviser. Lacson said there was “scuttlebutt” that Torre had been safeguarding other flood control witnesses.
• Batangas (1st district) Rep. Leandro Leviste turned over to the committee and the DPWH copies of documents that he took from the late public works undersecretary Catalina Cabral. The contents of the so-called “Cabral files” were not discussed at the hearing because the Office of the Ombudsman is now in possession of the documents and Cabral’s computer for verification.
• Preparations were made for the turnover of former DPWH district engineer and now state witness Henry Alcantara from Senate custody to the WPP. After the hearing, former DPWH engineers Brice Hernandez and Jaypee Mendoza were turned over by the Senate to the National Bureau of Investigation following the Sandiganbayan’s issuance of warrants for their arrest on charges of malversation of funds.
Lacson’s opening statement
At the start of the eighth hearing of his committee, Lacson took the occasion to refute “lies and claims” that his panel had not achieved much in its inquiry.
He recently exchanged heated words with Sen. Imee Marcos, disputing her claim that he had banned some committee members from linking certain personalities, including Romualdez, to the flood control scam.
Reading from a statement, Lacson said he and his committee had “followed the money and paper trails,” which uncovered how the “systematic and brazen” as well as “top-to-bottom” misuse and abuse of public funds involved high officials in the executive and legislative branches, including the Commission on Audit.
He also said the inquiry paved the way for Bernardo to become a state witness on the corruption scandal.
So far, Lacson said, the hearings have led to the filing of cases at the Sandiganbayan and trial courts, as well as ongoing investigations by the Office of the Ombudsman.
“As of the latest count, at least ₱21.7 billion in bank accounts and other forms of assets are frozen upon written order by the Court of Appeals,” he pointed out. Addressing critics, he said: “Your noise will not silence the truth; neither does it provide any help in our investigation. Your noise cannot convict—and won’t even indict the malefactors in this flood control mess. Only evidence does.”
He also said the blue ribbon committee is finalizing its partial committee report, which will be issued next week.
“With all that being said—as the chairman of this committee—I say to you: Shut the f… up!” he concluded.
Bonoan’s denial
At the hearing, Gatchalian read from Bernardo’s past testimony implicating his former boss and “mentor” Bonoan in the kickback scheme.
“I completely deny that. I have no allocable amount,” Bonoan said, adding that he had not read Bernardo’s affidavit entirely. This prompted Lacson to say that Congressman Leviste may “negate” what Bonoan said when the “Cabral files” are discussed later in the hearing.
Gatchalian told Bonoan: “You have let these things happen under your watch..How could you have let these things pass?”
Bonoan replied: “As DPWH secretary, I have general oversight” of the department.
Gatchalian told Bonoan that ghost projects had been validated in the provinces of Bulacan and Oriental Mindoro, and that officials under him knew about these.
Bonoan countered that he had reported the ghost projects to the President.
“…In my opinion, you are involved…I’m just expressing my frustration as a Filipino,” Gatchalian said, adding that the government is now in search of “criminals” due to Bonoan’s “bad leadership” of the DPWH.
With Lacson calling out as unacceptable his description of his role as DPWH chief as mere “oversight,” Bonoan clarified that he exercised both overall “supervision” and “oversight.” But he also said he relied on his undersecretaries and other DPWH officials in these matters.
This moved Gatchalian to shoot back that Bonoan should “exercise control” over the department, “down to the last janitor.”
Lacson wondered aloud if Bonoan’s claim that he relied on his “subalterns” is the defense he would pursue in the criminal cases against him. Lacson then alerted the Department of Justice officials present at the hearing that Bonoan would likely invoke the “Arias doctrine,” a Supreme Court ruling that states office heads should rely on their subordinates, as his defense.
Sen. Francis Pangilinan reminded the former DPWH chief that “under our Philippine jurisprudence, general denial is weak in the face of specific allegations.”
“You might need a better lawyer, Secretary Bonoan, because that won’t hold water,” he said.
Pangilinan then asked Bernardo about his reaction to Bonoan’s denial of his testimony.
Bernardo responded: “I have already signed my affidavit. I affirmed it, and I will stand by it.”
Olaivar and Ngu
Pangilinan also asked former education undersecretary Trygve Olaivar and businessman Maynard Ngu about Bernardo’s testimony that he had delivered kickbacks to them for Education Secretary Sonny Angara and Sen. Chiz Escudero, respectively.
According to Bernardo, he and Olaivar had “transactions concerning Sen. Sonny Angara” between 2019 and 2024, when “Trygve received deliveries representing 12% of the projects of [Angara] when the latter was chair of the Senate finance committee.”
As for Ngu, Bernardo said the businessman approached him when Escudero became Senate president in 2024 with the request that the latter be provided infrastructure projects. Bernardo said Escudero’s infrastructure projects were worth ₱1.4 billion, with a 20% “commitment.”
Olaivar said it was a “puzzle” why Bernardo made the allegations against him. He said he saw “no reason why [Bernardo] would implicate” him. He replied in the affirmative when Pangilinan asked if Bernardo is a “liar.”
Ngu also said as much when asked in turn by Pangilinan. He said he had filed a defamation case against Bernardo.
Lacson then reminded both men that Bernardo could not have just come up with the numbers he provided in his testimony.
“What I’m saying is, how was Usec. Bernardo able to invent the numbers? If you look at the GAA (General Appropriations Act) and the Saro (special allotment release order), the unprogrammed appropriations exactly amounted to ₱2.85 billion,” Lacson said.
‘Not competent’
Leviste, meanwhile, did not have the chance to say whether Bonoan had “allocables” or “non-allocables,” as there was no lengthy discussion on the Cabral files.
Even before the discussion started, Marcoleta said that Leviste was “not competent” to verify the Cabral documents because the lawmaker is not part of the DPWH, and that he may testify only on how he obtained the documents from Cabral.
Leviste said he had received hard and soft copies of the documents from Cabral, and these were released to him with the authority of Dizon, who spoke to him through speaker phone. He also said his mother, Sen. Loren Legarda, was also on speaker phone at the time.
Undersecretary Bernabe said that when Dizon took over the DPWH on Sept. 1, 2025, they received a report that Leviste had taken files from Cabral’s computer.
“Right after that, we secured the computer and sealed it,” Bernabe said, adding that they had turned the computer over to the Office of the Ombudsman.
Bernabe also said they received a report that Leviste had forcibly taken the documents from Cabral, but she and her staff asked that it not be made a big issue.
Leviste said that aside from himself, Lacson and Bilyonaryo News Channel are holding the same copies.
Lacson said the files he had received from Cabral’s lawyer were the Saro of 2024 flood control projects, but added that his copy is incomplete.
On questioning by Sen. Erwin Tulfo, Bonoan said the document presented by Leviste “looks familiar to me, as this is a consolidation of the computed allocables per district, and there is other information here, including total allocation from the GAA.”
Bonoan said he has no information on whether the list was released.
Lacson summed up his view on the Cabral files. “My take on this is, it’s just a mere list,” he said, adding: “There’s nothing wrong with the list per se, it really depends on the motive.”
If the motive was to get commissions or kickbacks once the budget law is passed, this was “planned robbery,” he said. But if the motive was to provide for the needs of a lawmaker’s district, then he saw no problem with it. CS
