Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Joel Villanueva remain entangled in allegations over questionable budget insertions totaling nearly P1 billion in the 2023 and 2025 General Appropriations Acts (GAAs), as they were “by no means cleared” of accusations related to infrastructure allocations in Bulacan, Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson said.

Some P600 million in projects was allegedly linked to Villanueva and P355 million to Estrada in the questionable projects.

“By any measure, Senators Villanueva and Estrada have not been cleared, at least on the issue of budget insertions involving infrastructure projects in Bulacan worth P600 million and P355 million, respectively, as alleged by engineer Brice Hernandez,” Lacson said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

Hernandez had claimed that large amounts of money were allocated to the national budget for flood control and infrastructure projects in Bulacan, which he linked to Villanueva.

Villanueva has denied the allegation.

He pointed out that the P600 million mentioned by Hernandez was indeed reflected in documents from the 2023 GAA under the Unprogrammed Allocations, with eight separate entries of P75 million each.

These were presented through slides provided by Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian.

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

“I’m telling you, you cannot be selective here. If you promise to tell the truth, it must be the whole truth, not what’s convenient for you,” Lacson told Hernandez during the hearing.

In contrast to the Villanueva-linked projects in the 2023 budget, Lacson said his office verified that the P355 million in projects linked to Estrada appeared in the regular budget of the 2025 GAA.