Ex-DPWH engineer Henry Alcantara arrives at DOJ for evaluation

Dismissed Bulacan first district engineer Henry Alcantara on Tuesday arrived at the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the evaluation of his testimony after he tagged several individuals to anomalous flood control projects.

This came after Alcantara, during the resumption of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee on flood control projects, admitted that he worked with Public Works and Highways Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo in giving commissions off flood control projects to the camps of Senators Jinggoy Estrada, Joel Villanueva , former senator Bong Revilla, Jr., Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co, and former Caloocan Rep. Mitch Cajayon.

Alcantara requested the DOJ and the Senate to give protection to his family.

Following this, Justice Secretary Jesus Crisipin Remulla requested Alcantara be brought to the Justice Department for evaluation.

“Due to the gravity of the allegations in the affidavit and it being a sworn statement, I believe this will be very helpful to the DOJ and the Witness Protection Program in trying to file a case as soon as possible,” he said.

“In that regard, I hope I will be allowed to bring Mr. Alcantara to the DOJ this morning so that we can evaluate his affidavit in full, given all the annexes, and that we can also ask him to sign certain documents that may be necessary to pursue the malefactors mentioned in this affidavit,” he added.

Committee chairman Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson required Remulla to bring Alcantara back to the Senate following his evaluation.

Meanwhile, Remulla said Alcantara has also expressed willingness to reveal all his accounts to the state.

Alcantara nodded his head in affirmation.

“We will ask him. I think that he has signified his willingness to do that already in a prior message to one of the contacts in the Senate,” Remulla said. 

Documents submitted to AMLC

After three hours of evaluation, Remulla and Alcantara returned to the Senate.

“We did good work today. Meron kaming mga inaayos na dokumento. Naka-submit kami sa AMLC ng mga dokumentong kinakailangan para mag-freeze sila ng mga bank accounts,” he said.

(We did good work today. We fixed some documents. We submitted to the AMLC the documents needed for them to freeze the bank accounts.)

He declined to divulge information about the meeting.

The Justice secretary said that he will need to meet with Alcantara again within the week to finalize everything.

Meanwhile, he said the DOJ will also evaluate former Bulacan 1st assistant district engineer Brice Hernandez.

“Because we got a letter from a lawyer asking that we also consider Brice Hernandez as a state witness,” he said. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News