ALABANG, Muntinlupa City — With the revocation of the project contractor’s license, residents of a private subdivision here are questioning the scheduled closure next month of a bridge to pave the way for retrofitting the South Luzon Expressway crossing.
To their surprise and consternation, the residents of Pleasant Village learned just last week that the company that bagged the ₱63.7-million contract to rehabilitate the five-decade-old bridge connecting their subdivision to the old national road (Maharlika Highway) is Alpha & Omega Gen. Contractor and Development Corp.
Alpha & Omega is one of the nine companies of the Discaya family, which has lately admitted to winning government infrastructure contracts that involved payoffs to engineers and employees at the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), as well as to lawmakers and other government officials.
The DPWH awarded last March the contract to rehabilitate the bridge on Pleasant Drive to Alpha & Omega in joint venture with KPSL General Contractor Inc., a company based in General Trias, Cavite. Cezarah Rowena C. Discaya was named in the contract as the “contractor.’’
However, on Sept. 1 the license of Alpha & Omega was revoked along with the licenses of eight other companies of the couple Pacifico “Curlee’’ and Cezarah “Sarah” Discaya, and their assets subsequently frozen amid public outrage over the web of corruption and rigged public bidding that attended nonexistent or substandard flood control projects.
Two Discaya firms—Alpha & Omega and St. Timothy Construction Corp.—have been listed among the top 15 contractors that got the bulk of government flood control contracts nationwide.
Between July 2022 and May 2025 alone, the Discayas and their companies won at least ₱31 billion in government contracts for flood control, according to the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism.
General assembly
At the general assembly of the Pleasant Village Homeowners’ Association (PVHOA) on Sept. 13, Ed Bautista, a civil engineer and a former head of the city government’s zoning office, suggested to KPSL civil engineer Joselito G. De Sur that Alpha & Omega and KPSL secure a certification from national agencies that their licenses are valid.
A contractor with an invalidated license implementing the government project will open the company and the DPWH to lawsuits.
It was a contractor’s invalidated license that prompted Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla to announce that the government might tap a different firm to undertake the construction of the ₱2.5-billion headquarters of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), an agency under his department.
“That is our only option left since the old builder’s license has been revoked. They can no longer continue with the project, and nothing has been finished yet, so they have to return the funds,” Remulla was reported as saying on Sept. 17.
He said the contracts for the construction of the new NBI headquarters on Taft Avenue in Manila had been awarded to Discaya companies. These are Way Maker General Contractor OPC and St. Gerrard Construction Co.
Uproar
The residents of Pleasant Village learned about the Discaya firm as the project contractor when someone asked KPSL engineer De Sur at the general assembly if Alpha & Omega had won the contract.
Confronted with the question from the resident who was reading a screenshot of the contract agreement between the DPWH and the two contractors, De Sur acknowledged that the project had indeed been awarded to Alpha & Omega.
The admission sent the residents into an uproar. One was heard shouting at the top of his lungs: “DPWH corrupt!”
The residents also came to know that the retrofitting of the Pleasant Drive Bridge had a budget allocation of ₱63,720,380.75 for 2025.
But the amount covered only half the bridge, said PVHOA president Danny Garcia. Another budget allocation is needed next year to cover Phase 2 to complete the bridge’s rehabilitation.
In an interview with CoverStory on Sept. 15, Garcia assailed the piecemeal retrofitting of the old bridge, saying: “Gagawa ka ng project na hilaw (you will do a half-baked project) amid the threat of the Big One.’’ In addition, he noted, an asphalt overlay on half the bridge would make the surface uneven.
The Big One is the 7.2-magnitude earthquake expected anytime from the movement of the West Valley Fault in Metro Manila. A quake of that magnitude could kill more than 33,000 people and cause 168,000 buildings to collapse, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology. The West Valley Fault cuts across Metro Manila, including Muntinlupa City, and nearby provinces.
‘Overpriced’
The cost of the project had caught the attention of Pleasant Village resident Santos Rejuso. He described the project as “overpriced,’’ saying that ₱63.7 million could already cover the retrofitting of the whole Pleasant Drive Bridge. He suggested that the approved budget be referred to the newly appointed Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon for review.
The contract (reference number 25OI0095) is under the DPWH Las Piñas-Muntinlupa District Engineering Office. It was signed on March 26 by District Engineer Isabelo C. Baleros and Alpha & Omega managing officer Cezarah Rowena C. Discaya.
The contract took effect on March 27 and is to expire on Nov. 1, according to the project status that the DPWH updated on Aug. 31 on its website.
The whole project is to be completed in 240 calendar days, or eight months, according to the contract.
Because actual retrofitting is set to start only on Oct. 1, the project may be completed in June 2026. But KPSL engineer De Sur said at the PVHOA general assembly that the contractor could get the job done in about three months.
Project implementation is already behind schedule. The retrofitting was first scheduled to begin in July but the PVHOA had objected to it on the grounds that the bridge would be totally closed off to both pedestrians and vehicles.
PVHOA president Garcia said that at a meeting on June 11 with the DPWH, Muntinlupa Mayor Ruffy Biazon, the City Engineering Office and KPSL, he was told that the retrofitting of the bridge would start on July 1 and that the road would be off limits to pedestrians and vehicles.
Per Garcia’s account to CoverStory, he requested postponement of the project but Mayor Biazon said any such action until 2026 would result in the forfeiture of the budget already allocated for 2025.
He then sought a brief postponement, or until after he had talked with other residents of Pleasant Village. Biazon acceded to the postponement and the request to keep the pedestrian lane on both shoulders of the bridge open while the work is in progress.
The agreement was for the project to commence on Oct. 1, thus occasioning the PVHOA general assembly on Sept. 13.
Garcia said it was only at the general assembly that he came to know about a Discaya company as the project contractor. He said DPWH personnel and a KPSL representative came to the PVHOA office on Sept. 5 but he did not yet know that Alpha & Omega was involved in the project.
A study conducted by the PVHOA found that some 100,000 pedestrians and various modes of transportation from motorcycles, tricycles and e-vehicles to cars, trucks and ambulances use Pleasant Village’s Gate 1 at the bridge for ingress and egress.
Special CARES stickers
Garcia said the PVHOA with the assistance of City Hall’s Community Affairs and Development Office would ask Filinvest Alabang Inc. to issue special stickers to owners of such vehicles as motorcycles and e-trikes so they can use the City Alternative Route Entry and Exit System (CARES) to and from Filinvest City while the bridge is being retrofitted.
At present, only cars with stickers issued by Filinvest upon payment of a fee can take the alternative route to Filinvest City, Muntinlupa’s central business district. Before CARES came into service in 2014, Pleasant Village, which is adjacent to Filinvest City, could be reached only via the often-congested national road in Barangay Bayanan.
The bridge’s closure would affect the finances of the PVHOA, which collects about ₱200,000 monthly from motorists using Gate 1 for ingress and egress.
Garcia said rental for the use of the subdivision’s covered court for events and sports activities would also suffer a hit. The PVHOA collects about P1 million yearly for renting out the facility.
The PVHOA has fixed monthly expenses of ₱300,000 for salaries, utilities and other costs, according to its office staff.
Barricades
The prospect of the bridge’s closure starting Oct. 1 did not sit well with Pleasant Village’s tricycle operators and drivers’ association (Toda). The group told CoverStory on Sept. 17 that they would put up barricades to prevent the closure expected to adversely affect their livelihood.
“Our 86 members will lose work. This is our only means to support our families,’’ Toda president Frank Roxas said in Filipino. He said the Toda would block the bridge with tricycles should the contractors proceed with the rehabilitation without the required permits.
On Sept. 15, some 30 workers of the contractor arrived at the bridge on board two vehicles an hour before midnight and attempted to put up scaffolding.
Joseph Villalon, head of the Pleasant Village security group, said he chanced upon the gang of workers while on ronda (night patrol). He said they could not produce a permit from the homeowners’ association upon his demand, and eventually left.
Garcia said the contractor has obtained a permit from Barangay Bayanan but not from Barangay Alabang, where the bridge is located. This explains why the DPWH misidentifies the project’s location as Barangay Bayanan.
Leave a Reply