RESIGNATION DOES NOT absolve anyone from liabilities, says Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon, following the confirmation that Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral is no longer connected with the agency.
During the Senate blue ribbon committee hearing, Dizon said that he has already accepted the courtesy resignation of Cabral, whose name forms part of the list implicated in the anomalous flood control projects.
According to Dizon, Cabral submitted her resignation two nights ago.
“I think she wrote a letter, she informed me by a message late last night that she had written to the committee to inform the committee of the acceptance of her courtesy resignation and thus requested not to attend [the hearing],” the DPWH chief said.
“But of course even if she’s now just a private citizen and no longer part of the DPWH, I‘m sure if the committee will require her to attend, she still must attend but now no longer as an official of DPWH but as a private citizen,” he added.
However, former blue ribbon chair Senator Rodante Marcoleta said that resignation from government posts does not excuse anyone from attending the hearing.
“Kahit na mag-resign po siya, it will not matter to us. There are personal questions that we need to ask,” said Marcoleta. Senator Panfilo Lacson, who now serves as blue ribbon chair, supported Marcoleta.
Marcoleta then moved to issue a subpoena against Cabral, which was seconded by Senator Erwin Tulfo. With nobody objecting to the motion, Lacson banged the gavel — “approved.”
Even after Cabral moved to step down from her post, Dizon assured that the DPWH would continue its internal investigation into the questionable flood control projects.
At a hearing of the House committee on public works and highways last week, Cabral confirmed the P51 billion infrastructure projects for the 1st district of Davao City during the last three years of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s term.
Lacson had also said that a staff of Senate President Vicente Sotto III allegedly received a call from Cabral, asking to make an insertion in the 2026 National Expenditure Program (NEP).
Sotto confirmed Lacson’s remarks, saying that someone relayed Cabral’s offer to him.