11 Floodgate deliveries totaled P1B — witness

Staff of former Representative Zaldy Co signed acknowledgment receipts whenever they received deliveries of alleged kickbacks from former Department of Public Works and Highways district engineer Henry Alcantara, a witness testified.

Wirt Walter Rosales, Alcantara’s personal assistant, said the receipts certified that he had completed deliveries to the alleged residences of Co.

The documents reportedly stated the amounts of the kickback Co was supposed to receive, while a separate sheet left with Co’s staff listed the project name, appropriations and commission percentage.

Rosales said former DPWH project engineer Carlo Rivera helped prepare the receipts by entering the required information and printing the documents on bond paper. He said, however, that he no longer had copies of the receipts because he tore them up on Alcantara’s instructions.

Asked by Associate Justice Ronald Moreno about the largest amount he had seen on a single receipt, Rosales said one document indicated P300 million. He estimated that the total amount he had delivered to Co exceeded P1 billion, involving 11 deliveries from 2022 to 2024.

Rosales said Co’s executive assistants, John Paul Estrada and Mark Tecsay, personally counted the bundles of cash that were in the containers he used to transport the alleged kickbacks.

‘Secret room’

Like alleged Co bagman Rodante Orbillo, who testified earlier, Rosales said the money was initially delivered in duraboxes before the deliveries were shifted to suitcases.

Under questioning by Associate Justice Karl Miranda, Rosales described the alleged “secret room” where contractor commitment fees were stored and counted inside the DPWH Bulacan 1st District Engineering Office.

He said only Alcantara, Rivera, and he knew about the room, where they counted bundles of cash before transferring them to duraboxes and suitcases for delivery.

Rosales said they sometimes left the money in the room overnight and that even the office janitors were not allowed to enter.

Rosales was the 11th witness presented by prosecutors in the bail hearing of former House Speaker Martin Romualdez, who faces a plunder case over the alleged accumulation of P7.4 billion in ill-gotten wealth from infrastructure projects.

Although plunder is a non-bailable offense when the evidence of guilt is strong, an accused may petition for bail to challenge the strength of the prosecution’s evidence.

Romualdez is detained at the New Quezon City Jail Male Dormitory.