The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Saturday said that former Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Bulacan District Engineer Henry Alcantara has not made an official recantation of his previous revelations during the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee’s hearing last September 2025.
“The DOJ has not received or reviewed any affidavit from Henry Alcantara retracting his previous statements,” DOJ spokesperson Atty. Raphael Nicollo “Polo” Martinez told GMA News Online.
“There has been no official recantation by Alcantara whether written or verbal,” Martinez.
The DOJ official was asked to clarify a report that Alcantara filed a counter-affidavit in relation to the complaints filed by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) against him and other DPWH officials, including Brice Hernandez and Jaypee Mendoza, over the alleged kickback schemes in a supposed ghost flood control project in Bulacan.
According to the report, Alcantara in his counter-affidavit said that there is no evidence that he favored any contractor, employee, or individual, and there is also no witness that he provided irregular payments, as the former DPWH officials argued that there is no sufficient evidence to convict him.
Alcantara further claimed that his subordinates “undertook and concealed the acts on their own.”
To recall, the former DPWH official earlier said that it was Hernandez and Mendoza who were behind the scheme.
Meanwhile, Martinez said that “there is nothing provided in the counter-affidavits that he [Alcantara] retracted any of his previous statements.”
During September 2025’s Blue Ribbon hearing, Alcantara 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 representative Mitch Cajayon.
The lawmakers have denied the allegations.
Alcantara, meanwhile, has returned around P181 million to the DOJ as part of the restitution process on the flood control scandal. —VAL, GMA Integrated News
