Witness: Co’s kickbacks had ‘receipts’ — that were later ‘thrown away’

MANILA, Philippines — The alleged kickbacks delivered to former Ako Bicol party list Rep. Zaldy Co from then Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) engineer Henry Alcantara came with “acknowledgment receipts,” a witness told the Sandiganbayan antigraft court on Thursday.

Wirt Walter Rosales, who used to be Alcantara’s personal assistant, said the single biggest amount he could recall on one receipt was P300 million, but that the total cash deliveries to Co reached more than P1 billion.

Rosales was called to the stand as a prosecution witness at the bail hearing for the P7.4-billion plunder case against former Speaker Martin Romualdez.

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Co, who chaired the House appropriations committee during Romualdez’s speakership, is a coaccused in the case and remains at large.

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According to Rosales, Alcantara, a former district engineer of the DPWH Bulacan 1st District Engineering Office, told him that the money being delivered came from flood control project contractors.

Rosales said he himself delivered suitcases and duraboxes full of cash to the former congressman’s alleged addresses at Horizon Homes in Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City and on Ladybug Street inside Valle Verde subdivision in Pasig City.

2 aides signing

He said the acknowledgment receipts were received by either John Paul Estrada or Mark Ticsay, whom he described as Co’s executive assistants.

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READ: Lawyers of Zaldy Co, Romualdez’s co-accused, appear for plunder pretrial

Between the two, Ticsay signed the receipts more often, he said, though both would “count” the money before signing.

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But according to Rosales, it was his idea to have “ARs” as record of the deliveries.

Before each trip, the witness said, he would first ask Carlo Rivera, another DPWH engineer under Alcantara, to prepare the receipts for him.

“I said, ‘Can you make me an AR as proof that I delivered the money?’ That was my request to Carlo at that time,” Rosales said in his testimony before the Sandiganbayan’s Third Division.

He said he would show the signed ARs to Alcantara a day after a delivery, but the latter just told him that ‘There is no need for that; just throw them away.’”

Alcantara, who is now a state witness against Romualdez and Co, earlier testified for the prosecution on Oct. 21. Rivera is scheduled take the stand on Tuesday next week.

‘Secret room’

Rosales also claimed that Alcantara had a “secret room” in his office where cash set aside as kickbacks was counted and kept.

“That’s what they called it,” Rosales said in response to a question from Associate Justice Karl Miranda, the division chair. “That’s what I heard.”

He described the room to be quite “big”—covering an area of about 5 meters by 5 meters—and the place where he and Rivera counted the money.

There was an instance when he counted more than P100 million in the room, he recalled.

Just shirt, no ‘maleta’

Also on Thursday, another prosecution witness in the case said that he personally saw Co giving Romualdez a gift—a T-shirt—and not suitcases filled with cash.

Police Maj. Hermelo Dichoso said he had never seen any suitcases being delivered or changing hands during his time as head of Co’s security detail from January 2024 to May 2025.

Romuldez’s defense lawyer, Ronald Solis, brought up Dichoso’s written judicial affidavit and asked him to expound on a line where he said Co “gave clothes as a gift to (former) Speaker Romualdez.”

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“This is not maleta but clothes?” Solis asked, before getting a yes from the witness.