The Manila Times
(UPDATE) PROSECUTION witness Peter Paul Cortez told the Sandiganbayan Third Division on Tuesday that the alleged ghost project in Pandi, Bulacan, was included in a budget errata upon the instruction of the late Public Works undersecretary Catalina Cabral. Cortez, the division chief of the programming division of the Department of Public Works and Highways’ planning service, testified at the hearing on the bail petitions filed by former senator Bong Revilla and by most of his co-accused in the malversation through falsification case filed in connection with the alleged ghost project. Cortez testified that the project was not in the National Expenditure Program for 2025 submitted by the executive to the House of Representatives and that it was included in an errata. “We inputed it per” instruction of Cabral,” he told the court in Filipino and English, in response to a question from Associate Justice Karl Miranda, the chairman of the court’s Third Division. Revilla’s camp has said that he had no hand in the project in Pandi, whether it was a ghost project or not. The other accused in the case are Brice Hernandez, Juanito Mendoza, Arjay Domasig, Emelita Juat, Christina Mae Pineda, and Jaypee Mendoza. The accused, except Jaypee Mendoza, sought bail. The case was filed by the Office of the Ombudsman in January 2026. Revilla refused to enter a plea during his arraignment in February, but the court entered a not guilty plea for him. Juanito Mendoza, Hernandez, Jaypee Mendoza, Domasig, Juat, and Pineda pleaded not guilty to the charge. Cabral died in December 2025 under mysterious circumstances. Her body was found at the bottom of a ravine along Kennon Road in Tuba, Benguet.
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