Marcos aide Jojo Cadiz has ties to contractor with big Ilocos Norte projects

Justice Undersecretary Jose “Jojo” Cadiz Jr., a trusted aide of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and whom resigned congressman Zaldy Co accused of being the President’s bagman, is closely linked to a construction company that set up shop only in 2023. After only two years, it has already won more than P200 million worth of projects to build roads, a bridge, and a flood control structure in Ilocos Norte — his and the Marcoses’ home province.

JSJ Builders Inc. was incorporated in 2023 by Cadiz’s son, who was just 19 then, but who managed to cough up paid-up capital of P35 million, based on Securities and Exchange Commission documents. In 2025, Cadiz’s now 21-year-old son is the company’s beneficial owner, with 97% worth of stocks under his name. The son is still in college, Rappler has learned.

JSJ Builders Inc. pretty much just maintained its capital at yearend 2024, according to its latest publicly available financial statement, but it is bound to grow much more in 2025. This year alone, the company scored four contracts from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), one of them being a joint venture — worth a combined total of P229 million. These four projects are all located in Ilocos Norte, the home province of both Cadiz and Marcos, despite JSJ being a construction company based in Quezon City.

The 1987 Constitution prohibits an undersecretary from being “directly or indirectly…financially interested” in a government contract. That’s one of the questions we asked Cadiz through a letter sent on November 28, which we have repeatedly followed up on December 1, 2, and 3, with his Department of Justice office and through the DOJ spokesperson. Rappler has spoken repeatedly with Cadiz’s staff, who kept telling us to call again. We will update this story once we get a response.

“The law does not suspend common sense…. Both the Constitution and the Anti-Graft Law anticipate relatives being used as shields or fronts,” said political and electoral reform advocate Eirene Jhone Aguila, a lawyer who co-convenes the Right to Know Right Now! coalition.

“If a young college student ends up controlling tens or hundreds of millions in contracting power, the only responsible questions are: where did his funds come from — and where in turn did those go? Was this truly independent or is he carrying the weight of someone else’s influence?” Aguila said.

Three of these contracts were sourced from the 2025 budget, called by legislators and experts as the most corrupt budget.

ILOCOS. JSJ’s four projects in Ilocos Norte all awarded in 2025. Photo from Google Earth satellite image, and pinned locations by author based on government data.

Sandro’s insertions?

Cadiz’s name surfaced recently because he was accused by former Ako Bicol representative Zaldy Co of being present in meetings in Malacañang to arrange alleged insertions and kickbacks. In his latest video, Co said it was Cadiz who personally received P1 billion worth of kickbacks in two separate occasions at a house in Forbes Park. Both the President and his cousin, former speaker Martin Romualdez, have homes in the posh village in Makati.

Cadiz has not addressed Co’s allegations. Investigators are downplaying Co’s videos because they were not made under oath. Marcos has denied all the allegations, and dared Co to come home. Cadiz returned to work at the DOJ at least on Monday, December 1, according to spokesperson Polo Martinez.

In his videos, Co also accused the presidential son, Ilocos Norte 1st District Representative Sandro Marcos, of having his own insertions. Co provided a document that lists the line items of these alleged insertions.

Two of JSJ’s projects, the two access roads in Piddig, Ilocos Norte worth a combined P18.9 million, appear on Zaldy Co’s Sandro list for 2025. As Co’s list shows, these line items are already included in the proposed budget for 2025 or the National Expenditure Program (NEP.) The document below shows the budget for each project was P10 million, or P20 million for both, but the lowest winning bids of JSJ amounted to only P18.9 million.

List from Zaldy Co alleging line items under Sandro Marcos’ “insertions”

Generally, insertions meant lawmakers inserting a project that’s not included in the NEP, most commonly done during the secretive bicameral committee or bicam level. But in this case, and as Co implied, these would fall under the mysterious “allocable” budget of the DPWH, an invention of the Marcos-time secretary Manuel Bonoan, to use a vague “algorithmic formula” so each district congressman gets set budgets to be included as early as in the NEP.

Senator Ping Lacson called “allocables” the new pork barrel, which has been declared unconstitutional.

Sandro Marcos got the biggest “allocable” DPWH budget, according to a report by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ).

He has not responded either to Zaldy Co’s allegations nor the PCIJ report on his allocable budget.

Cadiz, the almost ombudsman and justice secretary?

Cadiz hails from Banna, Ilocos Norte, and has worked with the Marcoses for decades.

There is a mention of him in the local paper Ilocos Times working for the Ilocos Norte capitol when Senator Imee Marcos was governor in 2010. When President Marcos was a senator, Cadiz was his staff.

INTERPELLATION. Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. explains a measure during the interpellation on the Basic Law on Bangsamoro Autonomous Region on August 25, 2015. MARCOS FRIEND. Lawyer Jose ‘Jojo’ Cadiz Jr. (left) with Imee Marcos (right) on August 6, 2013.

Marcos appointed Cadiz DOJ undersecretary in 2022. He kept a low profile as it was the undersecretaries who graduated in the University of the Philippines (UP) who virtually became the face of the DOJ alongside the principal — Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla, a UP lawyer himself. Cadiz obtained his law degree from the Far Eastern University.

That’s why it came as a bit of a surprise to outsiders when Cadiz’s name was floated to be Ombudsman when the post opened up earlier this year. Cadiz was supposedly a frontrunner, but he didn’t end up applying.

Sources said that gave the signal for Remulla to apply as Ombudsman instead, an appointment that he later secured. Cadiz supposedly would assume the post of justice secretary, but it was a post he again reportedly declined. The current justice secretary is Fredderick Vida who, like Remulla, is a politician from Cavite.

JSJ sets up shop

In November 2023, more than a year since being appointed justice undersecretary, Cadiz’s only son — who was just 19 years old at the time — incorporated JSJ Builders Inc. Three other shareholders pitched in P100 each as paid-up capital, while Cadiz’s son contributed P35 million. We asked Cadiz what his son’s source of funds was, but we have yet to receive a response.

Cadiz and his wife, a labor arbiter, are both government officials and earned a combined P6.16 million as their total annual income in 2024 from government, according to reports of the Commission on Audit (COA). We can track Cadiz’s income as undersecretary beginning only in 2022, and his wife’s income as labor arbiter beginning in 2024.

A source told us that there’s been a noted increase in the number of JSJ equipment around Banna, Ilocos Norte. This matches JSJ’s financial statement, because according to their 2024 statement, the company spent P86 million that year to buy equipment, financed somehow by a 20-year-old.

JSJ had no government contracts that year, according to government databases, and it appears they also had no private work. “There is no revenue from contracts for the taxable year 2024,” reads their financial statement.

But come 2025, they opened the year with a big project.

Garasgas creek project

In February 2025, JSJ won a P23.6-million contract to repair a flood control structure along Garasgas creek, upstream of Garasgas bridge, in Barangay Bil-loca in Batac City. This project is not found in both Marcos’ Sumbong sa Pangulo website and the DPWH’s Project and Contract Management Application (PCMA) databases. It’s confirmed through records found on Philgeps or the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System, where all government biddings are recorded.

This P23.6-million JSJ contract was for the repair of an original flood control structure awarded to Megapolitan, the company owned by the Marcos-endorsed Laoag City Mayor Bryan Alcid. Megapolitan built the structure in 2022 for P46 million.

We know it’s the same project because the location on JSJ’s engineering plan matches Megapolitan’s coordinates indicated in the Sumbong sa Pangulo website.

REPAIR. The sites of Megapolitan’s original contract, and JSJ’s repair contract. Photo from Google Earth satellite image, and marking of the sites courtesy of the author by using government location data.

While the project was awarded only in February 2025, the fund for this was sourced from the 2024 national budget, according to the bid bulletin. But we checked both 2024 and 2025 national budgets just the same, and could not find the specific line item for this project. This indicates that it could have been funded by unprogrammed appropriations, which is now under scrutiny for allegedly being the fund basket to deprioritize big projects to fund legislators’ pet projects.

The contract states that the repair should be completed within 183 calendar days or within six months, or around August 2025. But according to the DPWH, it’s not even halfway done.

Data from the DPWH.

A big joint venture

Late April 2025, the Marcoses — then-Ilocos Norte governor Matthew Manotoc (Imee’s son, now vice governor), then-vice governor Cecilia Araneta Marcos (cousin-in-law of Bongbong and Imee, now governor), and Ilocos Norte 2nd District Representative Angelo Marcos Barba (cousin) — broke ground at a big-ticket bridge project in the town named after the dictator’s father: Marcos, Ilocos Norte.

The contract, worth P187 million, was awarded to the joint venture of JSJ Builders, the Isabela-based EGB (whose owner is a government construction accreditor who resigned after the flood control controversy), and big contractor IGWT-JAV Construction and Development Company.

The long-awaited project would connect six to seven barangays, and would cut travel time, according to Marcos Mayor Antonio Mariano, an ally of the Marcoses, when he spoke to local news outlet JCQ back in July. The contract, awarded on April 4, must be completed in March 2026. It is still ongoing with a 5.87% completion rate, according to the DPWH.

FAMILY. Groundbreaking ceremony of the P187 million project to build a bridge awarded to a joint venture that includes the son of DOJ Undersecretary Jojo Cadiz (not in photo). Ilocos Norte Vice Governor Matthew Marcos Manotoc, Ilocos Norte 2nd Representative Angelo Marcos Barba, Marcos Mayor Antonio Mariano, and Ilocos Norte Governor Cecilia Araneta Marcos lead the ceremony. Photo from Manotoc’s Facebook page

JSJ and IGWT-JAV seem to have more in common than just this shared project.

An examination of their corporate records showed that they share personnel, too. One of JSJ’s P100-shareholder identifies himself on his LinkedIn page as the vice president for operations of IGWT-JAV.

JSJ’s authorized managing officer who signs their contracts has uploaded videos and photos of her at the IGWT-JAV office, or at an IGWT-JAV groundbreaking ceremony. Their offices are right next to each other.

One of IGWT-JAV’s shareholder is JSJ’s contact person in the latter’s general information sheet. They also share one common contact number.

We have also reached out to JSJ and IGWT-JAV via emails and calls to their SEC-registered numbers, but the numbers were either busy after a few rings, or no longer picking up after an initial conversation.

“For investigators, that kind of overlap usually signals common control, collusion, or a license-lending setup. You don’t need a whistleblower to see the pattern — the corporate footprints already line up,” said Aguila. “At minimum, this deserves a serious conflict-of-interest inquiry — not a memo, but a real review,” Aguila added.

DOJ Secretary Vida had said the accusations against Cadiz will not affect their parallel investigation into corrupt infrastructure projects.

Check the contracts here below:

Four contracts of JSJ by Lian Buan

– With research from Vicensa Nonato/Rappler.com

Vicensa Nonato is a Rappler intern. She is a third year journalism student at the University of the Philippines Diliman.