Czech authorities may have already released Zaldy Co — and Philippine officials may not know either way.
Justice Secretary Frederick Vida, who flew to Prague last Friday with his team to explore extradition options, acknowledged the possibility that Co had walked free from Czech custody, saying no updates on his status had been relayed to Manila.
That uncertainty shadowed a Palace briefing Monday in which Press Officer Claire Castro pushed back against suggestions that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had misspoken when he announced Co’s detention on April 16.
The dispute traces back to Justice Undersecretary Polo Martinez, who told reporters last week that Co had not technically been “arrested” — stressing that the word carries a specific legal definition — but rather had his movements restricted. The Department of Justice’s position raised immediate questions about the accuracy of the Presidential Communications Office press release, which had used the word “arrested.”
Castro, however, argued the president himself never used that term. “The President first posted his message on April 16: ‘Zaldy Co has been caught,'” she said in Filipino. “When we say ‘Zaldy Co has been caught,’ it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is an arrest. The word ‘caught’ is very general. So when someone is ‘caught,’ we can say they were stopped, halted, or prevented from moving, and the President was not wrong in what he reported on April 16.”
She also drew a line between the PCO’s language and the president’s own words. “The word ‘arrest’ did not come from the President himself, but the SOJ also does not deny that Zaldy Co’s movements were restrained to a certain extent,” Castro added.
Asked who supplied Marcos with intelligence on Co’s whereabouts, Castro declined to say. “Right now, I cannot say who gave him this report, but the President is careful in making announcements to our people,” she said. She referred all further questions to the DOJ, citing a confidentiality request from Czech authorities.
Co has been out of the Philippines since mid-2025. The Sandiganbayan antigraft court issued a warrant for his arrest in November and subsequently ordered his passport canceled after he failed to appear, leaving him a fugitive from charges tied to the public works corruption scandal.
