(UPDATED) PUBLIC Works Secretary Vince Dizon on Tuesday ordered the removal of four Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) officials from their positions amid investigations into alleged irregularities in flood control projects in Davao City and reports of extortion involving a construction official in Cebu.
Dizon said the four officials would be removed effective immediately while investigations into the alleged anomalies continue.
Those removed include former Davao City district engineer Richard Ragasa, who had been reassigned to Region 4B (Mimaropa); Lilibeth Sarmiento, the current Davao district engineer; and Roberto Mamaril, city district engineering office-construction section chief.
Dizon told The Manila Times that the three were among those being investigated by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in connection with alleged irregularities involving flood control projects in Davao, including projects linked to Genesis 88.
The NBI's findings have been referred to the Department of Justice and the Office of the Ombudsman, he said.
The fourth official, engineer Renato Catingub, construction chief of the DPWH Cebu 4th District Engineering Office, was removed following a report that he had allegedly been extorting money from contractors.
The DPWH chief said the department would enforce a policy of immediately removing officials from their posts upon receiving reports of alleged wrongdoing, particularly in cases involving extortion.
He said DPWH personnel implicated in corruption or facing cases over alleged irregularities would not be allowed to remain in their positions.
“Once you get involved in these kinds of irregularities, you must be dismissed from service,” Dizon said.
He added that the department was preparing further action against other officials facing investigations, including district engineers, assistant district engineers and personnel from regional and district offices.
Dizon said the department's Legal Service and Internal Audit Investigation Service has been finalizing its reports on the other cases. He expected to announce additional removals in the coming weeks.
The latest action forms part of the DPWH's continuing efforts to address allegations of corruption and irregularities involving public infrastructure projects, particularly flood control works that have come under scrutiny.
The allegations against the four officials have yet to be established through final administrative or judicial findings, Dizon said.
Dizon reiterated that the four department officials were now effectively stripped of all their official positions while formal criminal and administrative proceedings are underway.
Kickback system
Meanwhile, former DPWH district engineer Henry Alcantara, now a state witness against former speaker Martin Romualdez in a P7.4-billion plunder case, testified Tuesday that the infrastructure kickback scheme had been in place even before Romualdez became speaker in 2022.
“It is already a system,” Alcantara said, describing a practice he said existed even before he became a district engineer in 2019 when he was still working as a private engineer.
During the bail hearing before the Sandiganbayan Third Division, Alcantara identified former congressman Zaldy Co, who also faces charges in the case, as the person who determined the percentages for the alleged kickbacks. Co allegedly told him that contractors seeking the inclusion of infrastructure projects in the national budget had to pay a 20-percent commitment fee, which later rose to 25 percent without any explanation given to them.
The fees allegedly served as advance payments to secure the inclusion and eventual awarding of government infrastructure projects to contractors. Associate Justice Karl Miranda questioned what assurance contractors had that they would recover the money they paid before receiving the contracts.
Alcantara described the arrangement as a matter of “trust,” acknowledging that contractors took a risk in paying the fees. He also testified that a coordinator communicated with contractors about which companies would receive the projects.
Payments to Co were allegedly made in stages. Alcantara said a partial amount was handed over when projects appeared in the National Expenditure Program, while the full commitment fee was paid once the projects were included in the enacted General Appropriations Act. He said he observed a similar arrangement in his dealings with former DPWH undersecretary Roberto Bernardo.
Contractors allegedly benefited when the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) released the project funds to the DPWH. Alcantara testified that he had not encountered a case in which funding for a project covered by a commitment fee was not released.
Associate Justice Ronald Moreno asked Alcantara about the origins of the scheme. The witness said commitment fees were already being collected before his appointment as a district engineer in 2019, but could not identify who started the practice.
During cross-examination, Romualdez’s lawyers also established that Alcantara had not implicated or mentioned the former speaker in his previous appearances before legislative inquiries into the flood control controversy.
Alcantara also detailed his cash deliveries to Co, testifying that he handed over money on three or four occasions, with amounts ranging from P20 million to P30 million. The deliveries took place at a coffee shop in Bonifacio Global City in Taguig, and the cash was initially carried in plastic container boxes.
Co's aide, John Paul Estrada, later requested that the boxes be replaced with suitcases because their handles could break under the weight of the money, Alcantara said. The amounts being transported eventually reached P30 million to P40 million.
Alcantara said former DPWH undersecretary Bernardo introduced him to Co on Sept. 20, 2021, when they discussed funding allocations for his district. At the time, the budget allocation for the DPWH Bulacan 1st District Engineering Office stood at P590 million.
The witness said he had no direct dealings with Romualdez and coordinated only with Co and Bernardo. He also said he was not privy to any direct payments from the DPWH to lawmakers, explaining that any such arrangements would depend on agreements between Co and the legislators involved.
