Malacañang on Friday pushed back against explosive accusations made by former congressman Zaldy Co, urging him to return to the Philippines and formalize his claims that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered the insertion of P100 billion into the 2025 national budget.
In a rare joint appearance, Acting Communications Secretary Dave Gomez, Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, and Palace press officer Undersecretary Claire Castro issued separate statements rejecting Co’s assertions and distancing the President from the budget process.
“These wild accusations are completely without basis in fact. All the charges leveled against the President are pure hearsay,” Gomez said, stressing that Co should “come back to the country and sign everything he said under oath with the proper judicial authorities.”
Co, who previously chaired the House committee handling budget proposals, released a video alleging that Pangandaman phoned him at the start of the bicameral conference committee deliberations in late 2024 and relayed supposed instructions from Marcos to insert P100 billion worth of projects.
Pangandaman did not respond to the sequence of events cited by Co but underscored that the executive branch plays no role during bicameral talks. “All appropriations ordered by the President are already in the National Expenditure Program. That is why it is called the President’s Budget,” she said. “The bicam is purely under the power of the legislature. We respect and strictly follow the budget process and all our actions are above board.”
Co’s allegations come nearly a year after tensions brewed over the 2025 budget, which Malacañang delayed signing to “regain control” of the spending plan. Marcos later vetoed P194 billion in line items he said were not aligned with government priorities.
The political rupture marks a dramatic turn for Co, who was a key administration ally in late 2024 before being removed from the budget committee weeks after the flood control corruption controversy gained traction. By mid-2025, Marcos publicly vowed to pursue officials and contractors involved in irregular or non-existent flood control projects, a crackdown that eventually implicated figures once aligned with him.
Co is the first former ally to directly link the President to alleged fund theft through budget insertions. He likewise accused former House speaker Martin Romualdez of involvement.
Castro, in the Palace briefing, attacked Co’s motives, saying he was acting out of “desperation.” “Dahil lumiliit na ang mundo ni Zaldy Co, kailangan niyang umiwas at iiwas ang sarili at mag namedrop kahit walang katibayan at laway lang ang puhunan,” she said, adding that he was “magtatahi ng maling kuwento” to appear as a victim.
A day earlier, Marcos held his own press conference, highlighting supposed progress in the administration’s efforts to pursue corruption cases linked to infrastructure spending. He projected that individuals facing charges could see jail time “by Christmas,” though he did not directly state whether he viewed Co as the most liable. Marcos added the government would cancel Co’s passport once cases are filed.
Nearly four months after the President’s State of the Nation Address, no criminal or administrative complaints related to the flood control scandal have been filed, with Marcos saying authorities aim to build airtight cases.
During the Friday briefing, Gomez reminded the public that it was Marcos who “exposed all these flood control anomalies and has taken numerous steps since to ensure that the guilty are brought to justice, the stolen wealth recovered and the system is fixed to avoid any of this from happening again.”
