Batangas 1st District Rep. Leandro Leviste has described fellow lawmaker Rep. Edwin Gardiola as the “biggest contractor” currently sitting in the House of Representatives, raising fresh questions about lawmakers’ links to infrastructure projects.

Asked on DAILY TRIBUNE’s Straight Talk who Gardiola was and why his name kept coming up amid the scrutiny over flood control and other infrastructure projects, Leviste said, “I think Congressman Gardiola is significant because he is the biggest contractor in Congress today.” 

He said Gardiola — who represents the Construction Workers Solidarity (CWS) partylist and is a fellow Batangueño — has never hidden the fact that he is a contractor, even while serving as a congressman.

“He doesn’t hide the fact that he is a contractor and that he represents construction workers. On paper, there are many companies connected to him,” Leviste said.

Leviste claimed that two of the companies allegedly linked to Gardiola bagged six projects in his district — four in Tuy and two in Calatagan — worth a combined P794 million.

He said Gardiola even approached him to seek support for some of the projects, pushing for asphalt roads instead of concrete.

“He wanted asphalt over a cement-treated base — basically just putting a layer of asphalt over a dirt road,” Leviste recalled.

Local engineers, however, flagged the proposal as unsuitable in flood-prone areas. Leviste said this raised red flags about the motivation for the project design.

“I think the reason a contractor would want asphalt is that’s the more lucrative part of the project, instead of building a proper concrete foundation,” he said.

Leviste said the Tuy project was reported to him by the district engineering office and was funded under the CWS party-list, with the contractor allegedly working on behalf of Gardiola.

His concerns grew, he said, when he was told during budget discussions that there were no funds available for his district — only for Gardiola to approach him later with an offer.

“I actually spoke with Congressman Gardiola who told me that he could give an extra budget to my district as long as he would be the contractor,” Leviste said.

Digging deeper, Leviste said he reviewed documents from the DPWH central office and discovered that projects worth around P22 billion were eventually awarded to companies allegedly linked to Gardiola.

“I found that there were about P22 billion worth of projects that were tagged in a certain way, and a year later they all ended up with companies linked to Congressman Gardiola,” he said. 

“That’s why I said it looks like there were P22 billion worth of pre-ordered contracts in the 2025 budget,” he added.

He said these projects were already “loaded” into the National Expenditure Program (NEP) even before the national budget proposal reached Congress.

“In DPWH terms, they say it was already ‘kargado sa’ (loaded in the) NEP,” Leviste said.

While welcoming the removal of some DPWH officials linked to the alleged anomalies, Leviste said these were only the “low-hanging fruit” and that the problem runs much deeper.

“I’m thankful that undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, and director-level officials who were contractors were removed. That slightly reduces contractor influence in the DPWH,” he said.

“But this is a systemic issue that goes down to the regional and district levels. Some congressmen will even tell you it’s not just lawmakers who are contractors,” Leviste said. 

“Even district engineers ask, ‘Why should contractors make all the money? Why don’t we set up our own companies?’”