Villanueva, Estrada not yet cleared of budget insertion charge – Lacson

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MANILA, Philippines – Raring to prove his innocence, Senator Joel Villanueva waved the thick 2023 General Appropriations Act (GAA) and dared his accuser, Engineer Brice Hernandez, to look for the line items for eight flood control projects being linked to him.

He was confident Hernandez would not find them. The projects, after all, are not specific line items in the GAA. They are part of lumpsum appropriations for flood control and other infrastructure projects under the unprogrammed funds section of the 2023 budget.

At the hearing of the Senate blue ribbon committee on the flood control scandal on Thursday, September 18, an engineer of the Department of Public Works and Highways claimed that Villanueva inserted P600 million in flood control funds in the GAA for 2023 and 2025.

He also allegedly asked for kickbacks for projects awarded by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Bulacan first district.

Villanueva has issued a blanket denial of these allegations.

Blue ribbon committee chair Panfilo Lacson said the issue will be more comprehensively tackled in the next hearing. “We will have to deal with this in the next hearing,” said Lacson.

In a statement issued by Lacson’s office, on Friday, September 19, 2025, however, the blue ribbon committee chair stressed that Villanueva and Senator Jinggoy Estrada are by no means cleared of supposed involvement in the alleged budget insertions.

Lacson said his office found that P355 million in infrastructure projects in Bulacan that Hernandez linked to Senator Jinggoy Estrada were in the regular budget of the 2025 GAA. Estrada similarly denied Hernandez’s allegations.

Brice’s accusation

Former Public Works and Highways district engineer Brice Hernandez told the House of Representatives last week that Villanueva and Estrada are among lawmakers who asked for kickbacks from DPWH projects via his boss, former Bulacan 1st district engineer Henry Alcantara.

Hernandez recited a list of the supposed projects that had Estrada and Villanueva as proponents. The theory so far is that lawmakers make insertions in the budget for projects they want to earn from. But tracing the lawmaker-proponent has been challenging.

In 2023, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. approved the 2023 GAA with a total P807 billion in unprogrammed appropriations. Of the P807 billion, P50.033 billion was set aside for infrastructure projects and social programs. Budget Undersecretary Rolando Toledo confirmed to the Senate that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) indeed released P34 billion for flood control projects in 2023.

At Thursday’s hearing of the blue ribbon committee, Lacson said the P600 million supposedly for flood control projects in Bulacan were found in the unprogrammed fund under the 2023 GAA, which Hernandez earlier linked to Villanueva.

In his press release, Lacson said the P600 million was culled from documents provided by Senator Sherwin Gatchalian in his slides.

“There are seven to eight items worth P75 million each, exactly P600 million,” Lacson said. He said, however, that Hernandez had a “selective memory” as he could not answer Lacson’s other questions.

Allegations against Villanueva

Jaypee Mendoza, DPWH-Bulacan first district’s former construction chief, presented a photo of a supposed Viber message from Villanueva to Alcantara in October 2022. The message showed the senator following up on a multi-purpose hall project.

Mendoza and Hernandez said it was proof that Villanueva is part of the alleged syndicate that asked their office for kickbacks ranging from 25% to 30%.

Villanueva, however, said this could have easily been a staged message exchange. But Alcantara confirmed the conversation, asserting that there was nothing wrong with following up on a multi-purpose building project.

“Meron daw pong request na pinapa-follow up niya lang po sa akin, but there’s no such thing as flood control,” said Alcantara. (There’s a request that he’s supposedly just following up with me, but there’s no such thing as flood control.)

According to Mendoza, while Villanueva was indeed asking for a building project, the senator allegedly wanted a higher amount. The workaround, Mendoza alleged, was for Alcantara to “convert” the request into eight flood control projects worth P75 million each or P600 million overall, and then charge a kickback of 25% per project, so that there could be a P150-million payment.

“Wala po siya sa GAA, eh meron po kaming conversation ng chief of staff ni DE [District Engineer] Henry na sinend po sa ‘kin ‘yung list po na nakaayos na po. Eto po, pakita ko po,” said Mendoza.

(It’s not in the GAA, but I had a conversation with DE Henry’s chief of staff who sent me a list with items already in order. Here, I will show you.)

Mendoza then showed a document with the header “SJV,” which supposedly stands for “Senator Joel Villanueva,” and listing eight flood projects in Bulacan worth P75 million each.

SJV. An alleged list of the office of Henry Alcantara for flood control projects whose proponent is Senator Joel Villanueva. Courtesy of the Senate Livestream, as presented by Engineer Jaypee Mendoza

Villanueva denied the accusations, demonstrating how supposedly easy it is to manipulate even the metadata or specific information of a photo, such as when it was taken.

“Bukod sa madaling magmanipula, inamin ni Engineer Brice na wala siyang personal knowledge sa mga mensaheng ito,” said Villanueva. (Aside from the fact that it is easy to manipulate, Engineer Brice has already admitted he has no personal knowledge of these messages.)

“We want to be honest especially to the public, just to lend credence to the assertion of, I don’t know, of Jaypee Mendoza or Brice Hernandez, indeed meron talagang (there is) P600 million as described, as enumerated under the unprogrammed funds, I just want to make it clear, but we will have to deal with this in the next hearing, ito ‘yung kine-claim ‘nyo na ininsert ni Senator Joel sa Bulacan (you’re claiming Senator Joel inserted this in Bulacan), and I counted there are eight items with P75 million each, that is exactly P600 million,” said Lacson.

Where are the projects?

The eight projects were indeed awarded by Alcantara in successive days from November 9-13, 2023. Rappler verified this by cross-matching Mendoza’s list with copies of bid documents and contracts retrieved from the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (Philgeps).

Four of the projects were awarded to the notorious Wawao Builders, whose owner, Mark Arevalo, already admitted to lending his license to the district engineer so their “in-house” construction firm, or the syndicate, could build the projects and earn kickbacks.

ARL Construction and M.S. Ramos Construction were each awarded two projects. Due to lower winning bids, the overall amount for the eight projects reached only P555.85 million.

None of these projects exist in Marcos Jr.’s Sumbong sa Pangulo database, nor the DPWH’s own Project and Contract Management Application (PCMA) database. Marcos Jr.’s database would have shown coordinates so Filipinos can track and upload reports, while the PCMA would have provided a status report.

Contractor Sally Santos, who also admitted to lending her license, blamed the engineers for what turned out to be ghost projects. Mendoza, Hernandez, and Santos have already admitted to the modus that entail delivering cold cash in boxes to Alcantara’s office. While Alcantara denied any involvement, Hernandez showed a photo on Thursday of Alcantara in front of piles of cash.

It turned out that a P96.499-million ghost project under Santos’ license, awarded in 2024, also came from unprogrammed funds, based on the obligation request document that DPWH submitted to the Office of the Ombudsman when it filed a complaint against the Bulacan officials.

This specific flood control project, along the Maycapiz-Taliptip river in Bulacan City, was not specified in the 2024 unprogrammed appropriations.

There was a P145 billion unprogrammed appropriation for “priority Infrastructure program for roads, bridges, multi-purpose buildings/facilities, flood control, and water system.” Of that amount, P107.9 billion went to flood control, said DBM’s Toledo.

Unprogrammed funds

Unprogrammed funds are distinct from other budget allocations because they have no definite funding sources and may only be released if there are excess funds. Such excess funds may occur because government revenue collection exceeds targets, if revenue is generated from new sources, or if agencies are able to secure loans or grants in the case of foreign-assisted projects.

DBM’s Toledo said that for unprogrammed funds to be released, the DPWH would have requested for it and submitted supporting documents to establish why the projects were necessary and ready for implementation. Toledo said it’s ultimately the DBM secretary, or Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, who approved it.

“So basically this is approved by the  DBM, the secretary, who will be the one to sign for the release documents for the requests of flood control under the unprogrammed funds,” said Toledo.

Whether the release of the unprogrammed funds for flood control in the 2023 budget is supported by new funding remains unclear. This is not the first time the release of unprogrammed funds became the subject of controversy.

As a result, Gatchalian has proposed to remove these funds from the budget.

“I wanted to propose na tanggalin na ang unprogrammed kasi nagiging kitty lang, or nagiging lump sum at ginagamit lang ‘to in projects na hindi naman nave-vet nang mabuti,” Gatchalian said during the same Senate hearing.

(I wanted to propose to remove the unprogrammed funds because they become kitty funds, or lump sum used for projects that are not thoroughly vetted.)

Secret process

To this day, accusations of congressional insertions have not been proven because of the secrecy of one stage of the budget process, particularly the bicameral conference committee where the House of Representatives and Senate come together to reconcile their budget versions before they pass it on to the President.

At the Thursday hearing, Senator Rodante Marcoleta said resigned DPWH Secretary Catalina Cabral, holds the key information, and expressed frustration that the DBM was not being direct to the point. Pangandaman was not present during this interpellation.

“Bakit ‘di mo sabihin na nagsa-start sa opisina ni Catalina Cabral, siya lang, she’s the only person, and nobody else ang nakakaalam nito sapagkat, lalo na ngayon, siya may hawak ng lahat ng database ng DPWH,” said Marcoleta.

“Pupuntahan siya ng mga paboritong pulitiko…papasok ang mga pulitiko, diyan na maghahanapan, eto na mga paborito niya, lahat ng ito diyan na matutupad ‘yan,” Marcoleta added.

(Why don’t you say these all start in the office of Catalina Cabral? She was the only one who knew, because she was in charge of all of DPWH’s database. Her favored politicians would come to her, and that is where it all happened.)

Lacson earlier accused Cabral of offering Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III, via a message, to make an insertion on his behalf in the budget proposal, or the National Expenditure Program (NEP).

Newly-appointed DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon said that Cabral was merely asking Sotto if he had any priority projects. But Dizon said that Cabral initially denied the message to Sotto entirely.

“Siguro po meron siyang tinatago (Maybe she’s hiding something),” Dizon said.

Marcoleta said his team has found wrong entries in the PCMA database, including wrong coordinates, possibly misleading even the President. Dizon said he’s slowly finding out about these wrong entries too.

– with Gemma B. Mendoza/Rappler.com