MANILA, Philippines — A prosecution witness told the Sandiganbayan Third Division on Tuesday that the alleged ghost project in Pandi, Bulacan was included in a budget errata on orders of the late Public Works undersecretary Catalina Cabral.
Peter Paul Cortez, the division chief of the programming division of the Department of Public Works and Highways' planning service, said the project was not in the National Expenditure Program for 2025 submitted by the Executive to the House of Representatives but was included in an errata.
"We inputed it per instruction of [former undersecretary] Cabral," Cortez told the court in Filipino and English, in response to a question from Associate Justice Karl Miranda who is the chairman of the court's third division.
Cortez testified at the hearing on the bail petitions by former senator Ramon Revilla Jr. and by the other accused in the malversation case linked to the ghost project.
Revilla's camp has said that he had no hand in the project in Pandi.
Cabral died last December. Her body was found at the bottom of a ravine along Kennon Road in Tuba, Benguet.
