AMLC lawyer: P802M from contractor firm entered Co bank accounts 

A total of P802 million from Sunwest Construction and Development Corp. flowed into the bank accounts of former Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co from 2019 to 2025, a lawyer from the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) told the Sandiganbayan on Tuesday.

The testimony would prove Co had “beneficial ownership” of the company that bagged the government contract for a flood control project later found to be substandard, according to public prosecutors.

Jan Mark Busa, a financial investigator at the AMLC, took the stand before the Sandiganbayan’s Sixth Division, where he made key revelations seen to establish Co’s role in the company.

Earlier denials

In earlier public statements, Co, who remains at large, maintained that he had divested himself of all interests in Sunwest since 2019, when he became a party list representative.

The prosecution presented Busa to show that Co’s ownership of Sunwest would in turn link the ex-congressman to an anomalous P289.4-million road dike project of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in Naujan, Oriental Mindoro.

Busa said that based on the bank transactions tracked by the AMLC, P802 million in cash deposits entered Co’s accounts from 2019 to 2025.

Last witness

The testimony would show that even though Co had no direct participation in the contract between the DPWH and Sunwest, “essentially the benefits went to him and the amounts were malversed in this case,” one of the public prosecutors told reporters after the hearing.

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Busa was the last witness presented by the prosecution to pin down Co, who is being tried in absentia. A former chair of the powerful House committee on appropriations, Co, who left the country in mid-2025, had been declared a fugitive by the antigraft court.

Forced to resign from the House in September, he was one of the first public officials accused of amassing kickbacks or profiting from infrastructure projects in the biggest corruption scandal under the Marcos administration.

Nine out of 15 of Co’s coaccused, mostly DPWH officials, have been in jail since last year.