When former Public Works chief Manuel Bonoan agreed last week to turn state witness in the flood control plunder cases, he did more than rattle a Senate probe — he dragged a leaked budget document back into the light. And buried in that document, the so-called "Cabral file," is a number with a distinctly local weight: ₱4.24 billion, the fiscal year 2025 DPWH budget of Negros Oriental's 2nd congressional district — the single biggest of all 11 districts in the Negros Island Region.
The file — a "By DEO/LD Summary" of the FY 2025 DPWH budget dated January 20, 2025 — lists the 2nd district with ₱1.86 billion in "allocable" funds and ₱2.38 billion "outside allocable," for a ₱4.24-billion total. That is roughly 16 percent of NIR's entire ₱26.47-billion budget, and it ranks among the top 90 of the 253 districts nationwide.
Negros Oriental's three districts together drew ₱9.98 billion — about 37.7 percent of the whole region. The 3rd district (listed under Arnolfo "Arnie" Teves Jr.) got ₱3.32 billion, 2nd in NIR; notably, of its ₱1.48 billion in new GAA items, ₱1.41 billion was Congress-initiated against just ₱65 million from the DPWH. The 1st district (Jocelyn "Josy" Limkaichong) got ₱2.41 billion, 6th in NIR.
Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla announced on June 29 that his office had secured a signed cooperation deal with Bonoan and moved the Sandiganbayan to discharge him so he can testify for the prosecution. Bonoan faces a non-bailable ₱573-million plunder charge alongside Senator Jinggoy Estrada.
The move revived the call of Batangas Rep. Leandro Leviste, who released the files on Christmas Eve after the death of DPWH Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral, for a full congressional inquiry into how the 2025 DPWH budget ballooned past ₱1 trillion. He noted that at the January 19 Senate Blue Ribbon hearing, Bonoan confirmed the documents came from the DPWH — "a consolidation of the allocables, the computed allocables per district" — and Undersecretary Ricardo Bernabe III confirmed their authenticity.
"Hindi ibig sabihin ng pagkakaroon ng budget ay may anomalya, pero kung wala namang anomalya, bakit itinatago ang impormasyong ito?" Leviste said, stressing that district representatives are not necessarily the proponents of their district's entire budget.
The listings carry their own asterisks. Teves had been expelled from the House in August 2023 over his alleged role in the assassination of Governor Roel Degamo; then-Speaker Martin Romualdez served as the district's caretaker through the FY 2025 cycle until Janice Degamo won the seat in May 2025 — and Romualdez himself now faces charges tied to the budget insertions. The 2nd district's allocations, meanwhile, were shaped while the appropriations committee was chaired by then-Ako Bicol Rep. Elizaldy "Zaldy" Co — now a declared fugitive arrested in Prague in April and reportedly seeking asylum in France. The district's former representative, Manuel "Chiquiting" Sagarbarria, sits as an appropriations vice chair in the 19th Congress.
The Ombudsman is running a digital forensic examination of Cabral's surrendered files. As of this writing, no hearing has been convened specifically to trace where each district's FY 2025 allocations actually went. A large allocation is not, by itself, proof of an anomaly — but as Leviste put it, the question is why the numbers were kept out of view.