The Office of the Ombudsman has filed two counts of graft against the Villar family — including two sitting senators — and several PrimeWater Infrastructure Corporation and local water district officials, over joint venture deals investigators found "grossly disadvantageous" to the public water utilities involved. The deals ran from 2015 to 2022; the bill for one of them, ₱65.6 million in unpaid dues to three water districts, only became public knowledge after the Villar Group had already sold the company.
Named in the complaint are Sen. Mark Villar, who oversaw the Department of Public Works and Highways from 2016 to 2021; Sen. Camille Villar, a former Las Piñas representative; family patriarch Manuel Villar; Cynthia Villar; Manuel Paulo Villar; PrimeWater Infrastructure Corporation president Fe Rebancos; vice president Romeo Sabater; and other local water district officials. The charges cite Sections 3(e) and 3(g) of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act — the provisions covering, respectively, causing undue injury or giving unwarranted benefit through evident bad faith or gross inexcusable negligence, and entering into a contract manifestly disadvantageous to the government.
What investigators found
The Ombudsman's probe zeroed in on PrimeWater Infrastructure Corporation's joint venture agreements with the Quezon Metro Water District, Trece Martires City Water District, and San Pedro Laguna Water District. Auditors flagged that PWIC failed to pay a combined ₱65.6 million in dues owed to the three districts — money that, by the terms of the agreements, should have gone toward materials and supply inventory the districts needed to actually deliver water. In effect, the water districts absorbed the shortfall from a private partner who did not pay what the contract required, while residents dealt with the service gaps that followed.
That is the part of this story that resists spin: whatever the legal outcome, the water still didn't get delivered on the terms the districts signed up for, and it took Ombudsman investigators — not a routine PrimeWater audit — to put a number on how much the company owed.
The timing question
The Villar Group sold PrimeWater Infrastructure Corporation to Lucio Co Group's Crystal Bridges Holding Corp in December 2025 — months before the Ombudsman complaint became public this week. Whether that sale was arranged with any awareness of the pending scrutiny is not addressed in the complaint as reported, and Pulpulitiko was unable to independently confirm what, if anything, the Villar Group knew about the graft investigation before divesting. It is also worth noting that Mark Villar's stint as DPWH secretary overlapped with a department whose portfolio includes oversight ties to the Local Water Utilities Administration, the same sector regulator for local water districts like the three named in the complaint.
The response
Manuel Villar, responding on behalf of the family, said: "We are confident that, once given the opportunity to examine the allegations and the evidence supporting them, we will be able to fully and properly defend our rights." Neither PrimeWater nor the named local water district officials have issued a separate public statement as of this report.
What's still unknown
The complaint is a preliminary investigation, not a finding of guilt, and the Ombudsman has not indicated a timeline for resolving it or referring it to the Sandiganbayan. It also remains unclear whether the ₱65.6 million was ever repaid to the three water districts, whether other water districts under PrimeWater joint ventures faced the same shortfall, and whether the sale to Crystal Bridges included any provisions addressing the pending liability.
Context
The complaint lands amid a broader accountability reckoning already underway this year, with the Ombudsman separately reporting dozens of flood-control corruption cases moving through the Sandiganbayan and a request for a nearly ₱7.23-billion 2027 budget to keep pace with its graft caseload. It also puts two sitting senators — one a former Cabinet secretary — under a Sections 3(e)/3(g) graft cloud at a moment when Congress is simultaneously debating the 2027 national budget and its own record on procurement oversight.