MANILA, Philippines -- The chair of the House infrastructure committee tasked to investigate anomalous and ghost flood control projects said it would be inviting to future hearings former members of the bicameral conference committee that deliberated on the 2024 budget.

During a news forum in Quezon City on Saturday, Bicol Saro Rep. Terry Ridon said the invitees were the only ones who could explain how a P94-million flood control project in Bulacan - now found to be nonexistent - was inserted into the General Appropriations Bill that was later signed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Ridon said this group could include former House appropriations chair and Ako Bicol Rep. Elizaldy Co and former Senate finance chair Sonny Angara, who led each chamber's contingents in the bicameral committee deliberations tasked to reconcile their versions of the national budget bill.

Earlier this week, Ridon revealed that the P94-million structure along Angat River in Plaridel, Bulacan that Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon inspected last Thursday was not in the 2024 National Expenditure Program (NEP) prepared by the Department of Budget and Management nor in the House version of the general appropriations bill.

Dizon found that the project - implemented by Wawao Builders, one of the Top 15 contractors named by President Marcos Jr. as having cornered the bulk of the country's flood control projects in the past three years - only began work three weeks ago despite being deemed completed in 2024.

READ: Dizon to order perpetual ban of Wawao Builders, Syms Construction

This means that the project was a congressional insertion at the bicameral committee, Ridon said.

"The investigative logic of this is to ask the members of the bicameral conference committee of 2024 if they know who inserted this," the lawmaker said.

Ridon clarified, however, that they could be invited "within two or three weeks."

The next infracomm hearing set on Sept. 9 would first focus on the issues surrounding the nine-company Discaya empire, whose licenses were now ordered revoked by the Philippine Contractors' Accreditation Board (PCAB) for supposedly competing in the same bidding together despite having the same beneficial owner.

Initially, Ridon admitted that they were not so keen on inviting Co - himself linked to Sunwest Inc., another top flood control contractor - if the issue was to be about his involvement in questionable budget insertions in the 2025 budget.

READ: House tri-comm to summon Zaldy Co if linked to flood control anomalies

"The last time, it was irrelevant to invite him on (that topic) because it is not germane to the inquiry that's focused on anomalous, substandard, and ghost flood control projects," Ridon said. "But the difference now is that this is a budget insertion relating to a ghost project."

Co is believed to be in the United States to undergo a medical procedure.

Ridon also said they would continue to invite former Bulacan district engineer Henry Alcantara and Wawao to ask whether he was the proponent of the project and whether he had asked someone in the House or Senate to have it inserted into the NEP.

Alcantara admitted to lawmakers during the first infracomm hearing last Tuesday that it was he who proposed the inclusion of another ghost project, the P55-million reinforced river wall structure in Barangay Piel, Baliuag, into the NEP.

He claimed, however, that he was merely being negligent when he signed the completion certificates for the project and that he had merely relied on the reports of his staff that it was already complete.

Ridon, however, rejected that excuse, saying Alcantara "intentionally defrauded" the government and that he should be held liable for plunder. /das