Ghio Ong - The Philippine Star
October 23, 2026 | 12:00am
Former Bulacan 1st Disrtict engineer Henry Alcantara attends the House Infra Comm's first hearing on anomalous flood control projects on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025.
House of Representatives / Released
MANILA, Philippines — A former personal assistant of disgraced Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) district engineer Henry Alcantara confirmed that he delivered billions of pesos’ worth of alleged kickbacks from flood control projects to fugitive former party-list congressman Zaldy Co from 2022 to 2024.
Alcantara’s former personal assistant Wirt Walter Rosales testified for the prosecution at the continuation of the hearing for the bail petition in the plunder case against former House speaker and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez before the Sandiganbayan Third Division yesterday.
Rosales’ sister is the live-in partner of Alcantara, and he got to work with him in 2021 after his seafaring career was halted at the onset of the pandemic.
Rosales recalled he delivered plastic storage boxes containing cash to Co’s residential units at Horizon Homes at Bonifacio Global City in Taguig thrice in 2022, and seven times at the former lawmaker’s residence along Ladybug Street in Valle Verde 6 in Pasig City from January 2023 to December 2024 using suitcases.
The medium suitcases could contain up to P20-million cash in bundles, while the large ones could be stuffed with up to P30 million, according to him. He noted the amounts could increase between P5 million and P10 million if the suitcases made of cloth could be expanded.
Rosales noted Alcantara joined the deliveries, but when the cash-filled packages were sent to Horizon Homes, Alcantara would stay at the coffee shop while Rosales was the one carrying the packages from the basement to Co’s alleged two units on the 56th floor.
While Rosales claimed he did not see Co in all the deliveries, Co’s alleged aides John Paul Estrada and Mark Ticsay would sign “acknowledgment receipts” prepared by him and Alcantara’s staff and engineer Carlo Rivera, during times when Alcantara did not join the delivery. The receipts were later thrown away upon Alcantara’s instruction.
Included in the receipts were separate sheets of paper indicating the project and the percentage of the kickback, which were left to Estrada and Ticsay.
The cash-stuffed packages were prepared beforehand at a “secret room” inside Alcantara’s office at the DPWH Bulacan 1st District engineering office, according to Rosales.
When asked where the money came from, Rosales said he was not sure if it came from project contractors since he heard it from Rivera.
Rosales said that he and Rivera counted the cash by bundles and, once put in the storage boxes and suitcases, the money would stay in the “secret room” overnight. Rosales recalled that the cash could have amounted to at least P200 million at times.
When pressed by the Sandiganbayan justices how much in total could he have delivered to Co, Rosales maintained he was “not sure” but it could have reached more than a billion pesos.
Also presented during yesterday’s hearing was police Major Ermelo Dichoso Jr., one of Co’s former security officers from January 2024 to May 2025.
He confirmed that he knew Co’s other security officers previously part of the Marines, who earlier testified about deliveries of cash-stuffed suitcases.
He added he accompanied Co in four instances where he had meetings with fellow lawmakers at the Aguado residence in Manila, at the Manila Polo Club Townhouses and at Romualdez’s two houses on Tamarind Road and Narra Avenue in Forbes Park.
However, he maintained the meetings and what he called “special taskings” – wherein cash disguised as “garbage” were disposed of or delivered – were separate events.
The court scheduled the next hearing on Oct. 27, where Rivera would be presented as one of three prosecution witnesses.