Former Ako Bicol representative Zaldy Co has publicly alleged that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and former House speaker Martin Romualdez directed him to insert ₱100 billion worth of projects into the proposed 2025 national budget.
In a video released by his office on Friday, November 14 — coinciding with Romualdez’s birthday — Co said the instruction was relayed at the beginning of last year’s bicameral conference committee deliberations. According to him, Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman called to say “the President had instructed” him to make the multibillion-peso insertions, and advised him to verify the order with Presidential Legislative Liaison Office chief Adrian Bersamin.
Co said Bersamin “confirmed the directive” and later joined Pangandaman in setting up a meeting between him and Romualdez, where a brown leather bag allegedly containing documents for the ₱100-billion worth of proposed projects was handed to him. Co claimed he believed the bag belonged to the President.
The former lawmaker said he raised concerns that such an amount would push the Department of Public Works and Highways’ budget beyond that of the Department of Education. “I informed former speaker Martin Romualdez, Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, Undersecretary Adrian Bersamin, and Undersecretary Jojo Cadiz that only ₱50 billion should be inserted… In practice, the DPWH budget cannot be higher than the education budget,” Co said in Filipino.
He added that Pangandaman contacted him the next day with a firm instruction from the Palace. “The President’s message is: include it because Speaker Martin promised that to me, and it can no longer be changed,” Co quoted her as saying.
Co further claimed that after leaving the country on July 19 for medical reasons, he was urged by Romualdez not to return to the Philippines. He said he complied, only to later realize he had been placed at the center of a corruption narrative.
“What I didn’t know was that when they said they would ‘take care of me,’ what they really meant was that they would use me as a scapegoat in their anti-corruption campaign. They made me the poster boy of their own lies,” he said.
Co remains a key figure in the ongoing controversy over flood control projects, a scandal that has triggered some of the largest protest actions in recent years. A longtime contractor, his company, Sunwest, secured billions of pesos in government projects during his tenure as House appropriations committee chair.
