Witness: Over 10 cash deliveries to DPWH Bulacan since 2021
The liaison officer of a construction company linked to millions of pesos worth of government infrastructure projects that were either nonexistent or substandard told the Sandiganbayan on Tuesday that since 2021, she had delivered boxes containing cash to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Bulacan office “more than 10 times.”
Monica Louis Ocampo-Santos, SYMS Construction Trading liaison officer, testified before the antigraft court’s Fourth Division in connection with the graft case filed against former Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. and seven other people over the alleged P92.8-million “ghost” flood control project in Pandi town, Bulacan.
She did not specify who the boxes of cash were given to, but she recalled that in one instance, she delivered P299 million in cash to the office of her wedding godfather, Brice Hernandez, former assistant district engineer of the DPWH Bulacan First District Engineering office, on May 20, 2025. Hernandez is one of Revilla’s coaccused, along with other former DPWH officials, in the graft case.
Ocampo-Santos made the same revelation during the April 20 bail hearing held by the Sandiganbayan’s Third Division, this time in connection with the malversation case filed against Revilla over the same project.
Asked by Fourth Division chair Associate Justice Michael Frederick Musngi how many times she delivered boxes of cash to the DPWH Bulacan office, Ocampo-Santos responded: “More than 10 times.”
She said she was always with her aunt, SYMS Construction owner turned state witness Sally Santos, during the deliveries, including the one on May 20, 2025. The P299 million in cash that was delivered to Hernandez’s office was meant for five infrastructure projects, including the one in Pandi town, she added.
Counted per bundle
According to Ocampo-Santos, she personally witnessed the cash being handed to Hernandez by one of Santos’ liaison officers, who “opened the box in front of Brice [and] then [the money was] counted per bundle.”
Ocampo-Santos recalled that the boxes of cash were loaded into the back of a “Navara” pickup truck, which transported the money to the DPWH Bulacan office.
SYMS Construction was identified as the contractor behind the P92.8-million flood control project in Pandi, Bulacan, that had been declared as completed. However, no visible structures apart from a number of steel sheet piles were seen at the project site during the ocular inspection conducted by the antigraft Third Division last month.
When she also testified in the hearing for Revilla’s bail petition for his malversation case before the Third Division on April 20, Santos admitted that in exchange for a 3-percent “royalty,” she lent the company’s license to Hernandez, who managed to secure P1.8 billion worth of contracts for 42 projects in Bulacan from 2024 to 2025.
She also said that she has since returned to the government P20 million of her “earnings” in exchange for being admitted to the witness protection program.
Connivance
The Commission on Audit last year implicated the DPWH Bulacan 1st District Engineering Office in P360 million worth of “ghost” infrastructure projects. Subsequent investigations revealed that lawmakers, DPWH officials and contractors profited from kickbacks, resulting in billions of pesos of taxpayer money lost to corruption.
During a Senate hearing on the flood control corruption scandal, the head of the First District Engineering Office, Henry Alcantara, confirmed that approximately 50 ghost flood control projects were implemented in his district, with an estimated cost of P4 billion to P5 billion.
Revilla, who has denied any involvement in the Pandi, Bulacan project, earlier posted bail of P90,000 for his graft case, although he remains detained at the New Quezon City Jail in Payatas since malversation is not a bailable case.
The resolution on his bail petition on the malversation charge is expected to be released on May 6.
