444 Romualdez projects lacked DPWH papers

A total of 444 projects worth P27.43 billion were listed under the name of former House Speaker Martin Romualdez in the 2025 national budget, but not one had the required documents for inclusion, a Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) engineer told the Sandiganbayan on Monday.

Engineer Peter Paul Cortez, chief of the DPWH Programming Division, testified before the anti-graft court’s Third Division that the projects were not included in the department’s annual budget proposal or the National Expenditure Program (NEP).

Cortez took the witness stand during Romualdez’s ongoing bail hearing in his plunder case, which involves allegations that he amassed P7.4 billion in ill-gotten wealth from various infrastructure projects.

Associate Justice Karl Miranda, the division’s chairperson, asked Cortez at what stage of the budget process the projects could have been introduced, given that they were not in the executive’s proposal, or the NEP.

The engineer said the projects were likely inserted during the bicameral committee conference, noting that they were also missing from the DPWH’s errata submitted for consideration in the General Appropriations Bill (GAB).

“Sir, my best guess, because our erratas were included in the [House General Appropriations Bill]... it was not there in the GAB,” Cortez told Miranda.

Asked how he identified Romualdez and other lawmakers as proponents of projects that appeared only after the General Appropriations Act (GAA) was passed, Cortez said they were the ones who requested the insertions.

He earlier testified that lawmakers were listed as project proponents on the instructions of late DPWH Undersecretary Cathy Cabral, who directed personnel to encode the solons into the agency’s database.

Cortez explained that proponents were individuals who requested funding and implementation of specific projects. He said there was nothing inherently wrong with identifying lawmakers as proponents, provided the projects underwent proper evaluation.

He also identified projects listed under former congressman Zaldy Co.

Cabral gave instructions

During cross-examination by Romualdez’s lawyers, Cortez said no individual had personally approached his office to ask that they be named a project proponent.

Instead, all information on proponents came directly from Cabral, either through verbal instructions or written directives handed to Cortez’s staff.

“Yes, we have documentation that we were instructed to input particular proponents in the database,” he said.

Cortez said the documents identifying the proponents did not name only Co and Romualdez but several other lawmakers.

He said he did not know if Romualdez had agreed to be named a proponent of the projects.

The engineer also testified that no one at the DPWH could question Cabral’s instructions and that her directives were their only basis for identifying the project proponents.

Romualdez’s bail hearing will resume on Tuesday, 10 November, with the prosecution scheduled to complete its presentation of witnesses by 24 November.