DPWH awaits reshuffle; Bulacan engineers’ replacements named
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) will carry out a full reshuffle of its district and regional directors by January, according to Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon, who has also appointed the replacements of dismissed engineers Henry Alcantara and Brice Hernandez.
Dizon acknowledged the reshuffle when Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan inquired about it on Monday during the public works chief’s second appearance before the bicameral conference committee, which is finalizing the proposed 2026 national budget.
“We are in the process of doing this. Most likely, we will complete a full reshuffle within the first month or a month and a half of 2026. But many people have been replaced, especially those now detained or facing charges [in connection with the flood works scandal],” he said.
Presenting the replacements
Alcantara and Hernandez, both formerly associated with the DPWH District Engineering Office (DEO) of Bulacan’s first district, are themselves under the custody of the Senate.
In a press briefing also on Monday, Dizon presented engineers Kenneth Edward Fernando as the new officer in charge (OIC) of Bulacan’s 1st DEO, replacing Alcantara, and Paul Genar Lumabas as assistant district engineer OIC, replacing Hernandez.
Fernando, 33, was previously assigned to the Unified Project Management Office of the DPWH. He has been with the agency for 10 years.
Fernando graduated with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and a master’s degree in the same program under a scholarship from the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
Lumabas, 32, finished his undergraduate studies in civil engineering and is currently taking his master’s degree at Bulacan State University.
He was actually assigned last November to the Bulacan 1st DEO as an OIC of the Planning and Design Section. Before that, he was at the Private-Public Partnership Services Office of the DPWH central office.
Their new designations are effective immediately per Dizon’s special order.
“They will be working closely with our technical working group … to try to find a solution to this mess, because people in Bulacan need solutions,” he said. “They want accountability, but they also need solutions because they are suffering every day for practically six months in a year, because they are always flooded here, and we need to start finding solutions. And that is their job.”
“Don’t end up like those you will replace. Don’t be like them,” he told Fernando and Lumabas in the briefing.
Last week, Public Works Undersecretary Ricardo Bernabe III announced the expansion of the agency’s “internal cleansing” efforts—including administrative proceedings against 49 personnel, of whom 40 have already been placed under preventive suspension, he said.
Bernabe added that four personnel have already been dismissed from service.
On Dec. 5, eight officials from the DPWH office in Davao Occidental, together with Maria Roma Angeline Remando and Cezarah Rowena Discaya of St. Timothy Construction Corp., were charged with graft and malversation before the Regional Trial Court of Digos City over the P96.5-million “ghost project” in Davao Occidental.
Bernabe said the DPWH had already filed criminal cases against 63 individuals with the Office of the Ombudsman.
