The Files Exist. The Names Are Inside. The Question Is: Who’s Afraid to Release Them?

The controversy surrounding alleged DPWH budget insertions refuses to fade — even after the death of former DPWH Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral.

According to Batangas 1st District Rep. Leandro Leviste, Cabral personally handed him files detailing proposed infrastructure projects and budget insertions tied to the Department of Public Works and Highways. These documents, he said, were given to him months before her death and were meant to preserve records amid growing concerns over missing or altered files.

But here’s where the issue sharpens.

Leviste says he will only release the documents if allowed by DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon, citing congressional rules and institutional protocol. In other words, the files exist — but the gate remains locked.

This development comes as investigations into alleged “insertions” continue to raise uncomfortable questions:

• Who proposed the projects?

• Who approved the budget changes?

• Who benefited — and who signed off?

Cabral’s death, officially ruled a fall, has not erased the paper trail. Legal experts and lawmakers alike stress that documents don’t die with witnesses. Accountability survives as long as records do.

Leviste himself warned that releasing the files would have “wide-ranging consequences,” implicating not just DPWH officials but possibly members of Congress and individuals outside government.

That warning alone speaks volumes.

In a political system long haunted by missing records, erased hard drives, and selective amnesia, the existence of physical files is already a crack in the wall of silence.

The public is no longer asking if the files exist.

The nation is asking why they still haven’t been released.

And in the shadow of flood control scandals, unprogrammed funds, and vanished projects, silence is beginning to sound less like caution — and more like fear.

“For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.” — Luke 8:17