Common question for Zaldy: Why Marcos ‘insertions’ at bicam level?
Why would President Marcos tinker with the draft 2025 national budget in the bicameral conference committee when he could have done so when it was still with Malacañang?
Former Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad, Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco, and former Finance Undersecretary Cielo Magno raised this common question in reaction to the allegations made by resigned Ako Bicol Rep. Elizaldy “Zaldy” Co.
Breaking his monthslong silence by releasing a video on Friday, Co claimed that the President ordered insertions amounting to P100 billion when senators and congressmen met to iron out the disagreeing provisions of the budget measure late last year.
In interviews with the Inquirer, Abad and Tiangco said it made no sense for Marcos to order the insertions at the so-called bicam stage when he could have done it in the National Expenditure Program (NEP), the spending plan drawn up by the executive branch before the budget is sent to Congress.
“Presidents don’t ask for insertions,” said Abad, who served as budget chief of the late President Benigno Aquino III. “It’s not usual for the president to be submitting a list of projects for insertion. Parang napaka-cheap naman noon (Seems like a very cheap move).”
Asking for P100 billion in last-minute insertions in the P6.326-trillion budget was like “begging for spare change from the bicam; Presidents don’t do that,” Abad said.
‘Unbecoming of a President’
Tiangco shared the view, saying: “If he (the President) had, say, pet projects worth P100 billion, then he should have included that in the NEP.”
Even more “unusual and hard to believe” was that a sitting President would personally hand over a list of projects to subordinates of the Speaker, as Co alleged, he added.
Abad said Presidents typically communicate budget priorities through the Budget secretary or in direct conversations with the Speaker or the Senate President.
“It’s unbecoming of a President to be asking for an insertion,” Abad said. “The President never inserts. He tells people, ‘I want this in the budget.’ To say the President asked for an insertion is so unusual and hard to believe.”
Even so, Abad acknowledged that the administration did not exactly act creditably in the past years by allowing the funding of “ghost” flood control projects and the defunding of key social programs. Because of this, he said, the public was already “primed to believe any allegation involving the budget.”
“People are predisposed to thinking something really happened, because of the many irregularities from 2023 to 2025,” he said. “So when a story comes out, it seems credible. They can easily believe it.”
‘Full control of NEP’
In the video uploaded on Facebook, Co alleged that Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman relayed “instructions to insert P100 billion worth of projects” during the bicameral conference for the budget late last year when he still chaired the House appropriations committee.
Co also claimed that he was able to confirm Mr. Marcos’ instructions with Undersecretary Adrian Bersamin, head of the presidential legislative liaison office, and reported the same instructions to then Speaker Martin Romualdez, who he said agreed to them.
Malacañang dismissed Co’s statements as “wild accusations,” with Presidential Communications Secretary Dave Gomez challenging him to return to the country from abroad and give statements under oath.
Magno, an economics professor who served as finance undersecretary during Mr. Marcos’ first year in office, said the President could introduce the “insertions” while the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) was crafting the NEP and did not have wait for the bicameral conference to do so.
“My only question to Zaldy Co is why would BBM be so dumb as to wait for the Bicam to insert 100B when he can shove that it in at the NEP? she said in a social media post.
Political science professor Antonio Contreras of De La Salle University agreed: “The President has full control of the NEP through the DBM. Why would he insert during the legislative phase, and needed Zaldy Co to do the dirty job, when he can very well include whatever he wanted to insert at the time the NEP is still being prepared for submission to Congress? I think Zaldy Co owes us an explanation.”
‘No probative value’
Hours after Co released the video, Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson said: “I’m not defending the President, (but) why would he insert P100 million at the bicam (bicameral conference) when he can do that at the NEP already?”
He called Co’s allegation a mere narration with “no probative value” unless made under oath.
“It’s just narration—a story. It’s not under oath. If he comes here, takes an oath, and states his testimony—then that’s what will have probative value,’’ said Lacson, chair of the Senate blue ribbon committee, which is currently investigating flood control project anomalies.
According to Tiangco, he had a meeting with the President and then Speaker Romualdez on Nov. 24, 2024, during which Mr. Marcos berated Romualdez for the “massive corruption” in the House.
In the meeting, which lasted for about an hour and a half, he said, Mr. Marcos confronted his cousin about projects allegedly removed from the NEP and about the persistent allegations of corruption in the House.
“In the 30 years that I’ve known (President Marcos) that was the first time that I saw him mad,” Tiangco said. “He was really fuming.”
Co’s ‘list of projects’
Tiangco said Co was apparently trying to deflect accountability for accepting kickbacks from anomalous projects.
To prove his allegations, Co should release the full documentation of the “small committee” that handled the budget insertions, Tiangco said.
Co also produced a purported list of projects that Mr. Marcos requested to be inserted in the budget at the bicameral conference.
An examination by the Inquirer showed all the projects on the list amounted to P99.85 billion. Of this, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) got the lion’s share—P81 billion—of the total insertions in the 2025 General Appropriations Act.
Included are 33 listed and confirmed bidded flood control projects worth P2.868 billion, with the majority of them under the jurisdiction of DPWH Metro Manila 3rd District Engineering Office.
Absent from the list are the now much-scrutinized DPWH district offices in the provinces of Bulacan and Oriental Mindoro, and in the Bicol Region where the Cos’ construction companies operate.
Ten of the 33 projects in this category went to a Bulacan-based contractor called ADSL Construction and Trading (P1 billion), which was represented by Aris D. San Luis. ADSL was among the four contractors identified by Oriental Mindoro Gov. Humerlito “Bonz” Dolor as having built flood control projects that collapsed on July 23 after days of heavy monsoon rains.
Also not on the list are the projects of Sunwest Inc., the company Co founded, and those of Hi-Tone Construction, which his brother and former Ako Bicol Rep. Christopher “Kito” Co founded.
There are 138 confirmed bidded road and bridge developments totaling P14.995 billion. Majority of the projects are under the DPWH Quezon City 2nd District Engineering Office, with 26 projects worth P2.138 billion; followed by Tarlac District Engineering Office with 24 projects at P2.450 billion.
Le Bron Construction, whose owners are linked to Commission on Audit Commissioner Mario Lipana, leads the contractors for roads, with 11 projects worth P1.1 billion.
Some of the Top 15 contractors named by President Marcos in August for cornering the bulk of flood control projects also appear on the list, including Legacy Construction (with two projects worth P293 million); M.G. Samidan (three projects worth P479 million); QM Builders (one project worth P150 million); Wawao Builders (two projects worth P200 million); and L.R. Tiqui (two projects worth P375 million). —WITH REPORTS FROM GABRIEL PABICO LALU AND CHARIE ABARCA
