The Commission on Audit on Thursday cleared Senator Joel Villanueva of involvement in the anomalies in multi-billion-peso flood control projects in Bulacan, the lawmaker’s political bailiwick. 

COA chairperson Gamaliel Cordoba provided the commission’s findings to the Senate finance committee reviewing the 2027 budget after Villanueva challenged him to publicly disclose whether the senator was implicated in the fraud audits launched by the auditing body in Bulacan.

“This is no-holds-barred. Can you disclose the results [of the fraud audits]? You can say it even in front of Sen. JV—I wouldn't be embarrassed to hear if Joel Villanueva was involved in the flood control projects flagged by the COA,” Villanueva said in Filipino. 

Audit findings revealed that P98 billion worth of flood control projects went to Central Luzon from the start of President Marcos Jr.'s administration in July 2022 to May 2025, making the region the top recipient.

Of the amount, Cordoba said Bulacan received approximately 45 percent, or a staggering P44 billion. 

Given the magnitude of the budget involved, Cordoba said COA prioritized Bulacan for a fraud audit. The auditing body, he remarked, has completed almost 50 fraud audit reports in the province, the majority of which are ghost or non-existent.

According to the COA chief, most of the “persons liable” in the flagged projects in Bulacan are officials and personnel of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), the implementing agency.

“It’s really the DPWH people, the ones who implement [the projects] because it’s the budget of the DPWH…Senator Joel is not [in the findings], and he is not an implementer. He’s a legislator,” Cordoba replied to Villanueva.

Villanueva is just one of the countless lawmakers facing accusations of involvement in the alleged kickback scheme in the flood control projects. 

In a House inquiry in September last year, former DPWH-Bulacan district engineer Brice Hernandez tagged Villanueva in the so-called SOP scheme, in which a proponent receives a commission or kickback for every government-funded project he endorses to the province. The senator has denied the allegations.

Villanueva allegedly had eight flood mitigation projects totaling P600 million in Balagtas and Bocaue, Bulacan, and purportedly received a 30 percent kickback from each project, according to Hernandez, who has remained detained for multiple corruption-related cases involving flood control projects.

Hernandez did not qualify as a state witness, although the Department of Justice and the Ombudsman officially designated him as a “cooperative witness.”

Cordoba told the panel, “We observed a variety of issues; many of the projects were either defective or non-existent. That was our conclusion from the fraud audit, so we issued notices of disallowance and have already submitted them to the Office of the Ombudsman.”

The same was also transmitted to the now-defunct Independent Commission for Infrastructure, which was formed to probe alleged anomalies in multi-billion-peso public infrastructure and flood control projects. The body concluded operations in March after six months.

Villanueva lamented that the flooding situation in Bulacan, his turf, has reached its “worst” point, now affecting areas that previously did not experience flooding. He said even his home had been submerged with floodwaters following the recent habagats.

Panel chair JV Ejercito directed the COA to submit the fraud audits ahead of the plenary deliberations, tentatively set for November. Ejercito emphasized the need to review the findings so that the Senate could decide which projects will receive funding for 2027. 

To recall, the Marcos administration revived the budget for flood control projects under the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for 2027, a year after the agency received zero budget for such anti-flood programs. 

The DPWH has a proposed P643.95-billion budget for next year, with P107.4 billion, or 16 percent, earmarked for flood control. Of the amount, the scandal-plagued agency seeks to allocate P83.84 billion for locally funded flood control projects.

Ejercito previously stated that the Senate will block funding for newly proposed flood control projects, since the committee will prioritize completing unfinished projects and addressing existing gaps to prevent the recurrence of corruption schemes. 

Villanueva backed Ejercito’s call to develop a binding long-term master plan to ensure continuity of infrastructure projects, regardless of the administration.

Lawmakers believed that having a master plan would ensure that all proposed projects are legitimate, evidence-based, aligned with public needs, and completed on time. Ultimately, it would prevent the recurrence of “patchwork” projects, which are deliberately designed to make room for kickbacks to lawmakers, DPWH officials, and contractors.

As early as 2016, Cordova noted that COA has consistently flagged the lack of a unified master plan for the DPWH, which has allowed them to implement flood control projects in a fragmented and uncoordinated manner.