“MAY ALLEGED links kay former Congressman Dong Gonzales ang kontratista, so we have to look into that… Meron ding mga alegasyon na hindi talaga sila yung gumagawa, may ibang gumagawa.”
On national TV and social media, Public Works Sec. Vince Dizon finally disclosed what just everyone in Pampanga had long known – the former House senior deputy speaker’s alleged connection with the contractor of the thrice-collapsed Candating flood control project.
Maybe in Dizon’s next flash of revelation, he would divulge the blood, if not business, lines bonding Eddmari Construction with 4th District Rep. Anna York-Bondoc’s husband, San Luis Mayor Jay Sagum.
Anyways, Dizon’s (un)reveal of late, a mere allegation at that, pales and fades under the brilliance of Ombudsman Boying Remulla’s direct accusation of Gonzales: “Congtractor yan eh… People didn’t believe that there would be accountability whatsoever in violating the law, harap-harapan kasi nga walang manghuhuli. Bawal iyan eh. It’s a prohibited activity, it’s a conflict of interest found in so many laws on corruption so mahirap na makatakas diyan.” That was on Nov. 20, 2025.
Unlike his reaction to Remulla’s virtual indictment which he simply dismissed with the pro-forma: “While I welcome any inquiry on the matter, I am not aware of an ongoing Ombudsman formal investigation against me on prohibited interests,” Gonzales was vehement in his denial of Dizon’s mere allegation.
“Hindi ko kilala si Eddmari. Kung engineer man yan, engineer ako, di ko pa nakikita ng personal. Okay, ang pamilya ko contractor yan, pero ako hindi ako congtractor… Bakit ko pa hihiramin si Eddmari? Bakit di ko gamitin yung family ko kung ako ang gagawa?” Gonzales said at the public hearing on Candating called by the local government of Arayat with local DPWH officials and Eddmari Construction representatives.
To be fair, we give Gonzales the benefit of the doubt: that he did not know Eddmari from any other contactor, er, contractor. Out in the open though is his rather deep concern with the Candating project.
In January 2025, still the sitting House senior deputy speaker and Pampanga 3rd District representative, Gonzales had this learned take of the August 2024 Candating collapse: “The project, a 110.2-meter flood mitigation structure, suffered damage due to a combination of natural forces and design vulnerabilities.”
Emphasizing: “The repair is expected to be completed by April 2025 at no cost to the government, as the project is still under warranty (by the contractor).”
Further noting that “Officials are also considering additional measures to prevent future occurrences.”
More than congressman, Gonzales took the role of contractor, construction foreman, and DPWH spokesman rolled into one there. To no avail, as by July 2025, whatever repairs – completed or not, whatever additional measures – instituted or not, were obliterated by another collapse of the flood mitigation structure.
Still the civil engineer that he is and the contractor that he says he once was, Gonzales attributed to “natural forces” the 2024 collapse, the most recent one he deemed an “act of God” outside human control. Where others point, all too loudly, to substandard sheet piles used as retention walls.
Sheet piles become Dong
It is precisely to the sheet piles that people in Pampanga, principally in Mexico and Arayat, made the most obvious, if perceived, connection between Gonzales and the Candating project.
As early as August 2023 – a full year before the first collapse in Candating — Association of Barangay Captains-Mexico president Terence Napao had called out: “Bagutan la reng sheet piles,” referencing alleged anomalies in the flood control projects in his town contracted to A.D. Gonzales Jr. Construction & Trading, the congressman’s eponymous company.
Napao subsequently haled Gonzales to the Ombudsman on graft and corruption charges which was unceremoniously junked for “lack of evidence,” if memory serves right.
Nature however fortuitously provided the evidence veritably vindicating Napao, when, in September 2024, heavy rains washed out a P199.495-million flood control project along the Abacan River in Barangay Suclaban, Mexico, unearthing visibly short-of-specification sheet piles. The contractor: A.D. Gonzales Jr. Construction & Trading. Project duration: June 13, 2022 to June 7, 2023.
Thence, Napao’s call Tagalized to “Bunutin ang sheet piles” reverberated across Pampanga in the aftermath of the August 2024 unraveling in Candating.
By induction, the image of the dug-up seemingly shortened sheet piles in the Gonzales project in Mexico readily affixed to the damaged Eddmari project in Arayat, with the all too ubiquitous smiling mug of the congressman attached.
Is not, is not, is
“Si Dong Gonzales po ay hindi congtractor…hindi po ako congtractor. Ako po ay isang mambabatas.” Insistent was Gonzales in defining himself during the Jan. 26 Arayat public hearing. Noting that he divested from his eponymous company in 2007 when he first won as congressman and throughout his House incumbency until June 2025, interrupted only with his loss in 2013.
A.D. Gonzales Jr. Construction & Trading getting government infrastructure projects contemporaneous with the honorable A. D. Gonzales Jr. holding prime positions in Congress, culminating in the senior deputy speakership in his last term, does not exactly hew to Gonzales’ take of his entrepreneurial-political dichotomy.
It makes the exact definition of the term “Congtractor,” a rather recent portmanteau referencing congressmen who also own, manage, or profit from construction companies that have secured DPWH contracts.
Of the Top 10 contractors that snagged the lion’s share of DPWH flood control contracts in Pampanga culled from the “Sumbong sa Pangulo” website last August, A.D. Gonzales Jr. Construction and Trading Co. Inc. ranked only Top 5 but was awarded the largest funded single flood control projects in the province, to wit:
1) the Abacan River diking and slope protection project in Mexico, Pampanga at a cost of P270.194 million reported completed on March 6, 2024; and
2) flood control works on the Pasig-Potrero River and the San Fernando-Bacolor section of the San Fernando-Sto. Tomas-Minalin Tail Dike at a cost of P257.255 million and completed on June 5, 2024. (Erroneously placed in La Union in the sumbong website).
One more project listed under A.D. Gonzales Jr. Construction is another Abacan River diking, also in Mexico but distinguished as Phase I, with a cost of P96.496 million and completed on Nov. 23, 2023.
Gonzales may have divested from his company, but self-named as it is, he is the very face of it, with his family as the functioning body.
In Napao’s complaint with the Ombudsman, listed as officers of A.D. Gonzales Jr. Construction & Trading were Gonzales’ son Aurelio Brenz, then a councilor now vice mayor of the capital city, as the company’s president and majority shareholder; daughter, then-provincial board member now Pampanga 3rd District Rep. Alyssa Michaela Gonzales, as secretary and treasurer; son Aurelio III, as vice president; daughter Aurelio Michaline as director; and the Gonzales’ elder sister Zenaida Quiambao also director.
“Any right-minded citizen would easily figure out why and how a senior deputy speaker, a city councilor and a bokal (provincial board member) owning a construction company and with DPWH officials under their beck and call were favored with hundreds of millions worth of government contracts,” Napao alleged at the time. “With huge projects such as these, it would be the height of naiveté not to sense a collusion between the congressman’s company and the DPWH.”
Reminded we are here of an urban legend at the DPWH-3 office first heard before the Covid pandemic: An unnamed honorable member of the House frequenting the director’s office with the standard intro: “I am not a congressman here now. I am a contractor.”
“Si Dong Gonzales po ay hindi congtractor.” Don’t us!
