‘Hunt’ on for Co, 15 others; cops start at Taguig home
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) on Saturday ordered the Philippine National Police to enforce the arrest warrants against former Ako Bicol Rep. Elizaldy Co and 15 other people accused of graft and malversation tied to a substandard P289.5-million flood control project in Oriental Mindoro.
The warrants were issued on Friday by three divisions of the Sandiganbayan where the Office of the Ombudsman filed two counts of graft and one count of malversation through falsification last Tuesday against Co, 10 DPWH officials and five company officers of Sunwest Inc., the project contractor.
Step toward justice
The Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), the fact-finding body created by President Marcos to investigate irregularities in the flood control projects of the government, said the order to arrest Co and the others was a step toward attaining justice for the people.
ICI executive director Brian Keith Hosaka said on Saturday that the Sandiganbayan’s warrants were “very important in the trial of the accused in the flood control scandal.”
“This signals the start of the court process to achieve justice for the people,” he said in a statement. “This would also serve as the legal basis for the return to the country of those involved.”
The ICI had recommended the prosecution of Co and the others.
Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla on Friday said in an interview with dzMM Teleradyo that he was giving the accused until Monday, Nov. 24, to surrender.
“Otherwise, we will hunt them down,” he said, adding that “we will do everything we can to make them face the law.”
No order yet on passport
Assistant Ombudsman Mico Clavano said on Tuesday that they requested the antigraft court to cancel the former congressman’s passport and asked the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) to put a red notice out for Co.
The Department of Foreign Affairs on Friday night said it had not yet received a court order canceling Co’s passport, which is required under the New Philippine Passport Act.
A red notice is a request to law enforcement worldwide to find and provisionally arrest a person “pending extradition, surrender or similar legal action.”
Remulla said that two months ago, the Interpol issued a blue notice for Co. This allows the 196 member states of the Interpol to share information about his whereabouts.
Co resigned from Congress and is currently abroad. His lawyer said he won’t return to the country because of threats to his life.
In his dzMM interview, Remulla said Co was in Japan last Monday, then flew to China and may have traveled on to Europe later in the week.
In a statement on Saturday, the DILG said ict directed the PNP to serve the warrants “properly and in full accordance with the law,” adding that enforcement would proceed regardless of political ties.
Taguig home locked
“Enforcement will not depend on personalities or politics. Anyone who is the subject of a lawful warrant will be apprehended,” it said.
“The law applies equally to all and the DILG will carry out what needs to be done,” it added.
It emphasized that due process would be observed and all individuals covered by the warrants would be treated fairly.
The Taguig City police may have been the first PNP unit to attempt to arrest the billionaire ex-congressman.
A team from its warrant and subpoena section, along with officers from the Southern Police District (SPD), on Saturday morning went to his condominium on the 56th floor of the luxury Horizon Homes by Shangri-La at The Fort in Taguig but found it locked.
The officers were informed by the property’s duty manager Richard Paul Estampa and security manager Miguel Del Prado that Co was not at the unit, which had been sealed for nearly a month, indicating nonoccupancy, the SPD public information office (PIO) told the Inquirer.
No bail recommended
It said that surveillance and monitoring efforts will continue “to locate and apprehend the accused for prompt service of the warrant.”
Co and 15 others are charged in Sandiganbayan’s Fifth Division with graft for causing undue injury to the government. Co is the only accused in the Seventh Division in the second graft case for allegedly receiving unwarranted financial benefits.
All 16 are accused of malversation of public funds through falsification of public documents in the Sixth Division. They allegedly were involved in making bogus accomplishment reports and false certifications in order to collect project payments.
The Ombudsman did not recommend bail for this charge as the funds involved exceeded the P8.8 million threshold.
Co’s coaccused are:
- Gerald Pacanan (Regional director, DPWH-Region IV-B)
- Gene Ryan Alurin Altea (assistant regional director, DPWH Region IV-B, now DPWH Bureau of Maintenance director)
- Ruben Delos Santos Santos Jr. (assistant regional director, DPWH Region IV-B)
- Dominic Gregorio Serrano (chief, Construction Division, DPWH Region IV-B)
- Juliet Cabungan Calvo chief, Maintenance Division, DPWH Region IV-B)
- Dennis Pelo Abagon (OIC-chief, Quality Assurance and Hydrology Division; regular member, BAC, now OIC-chief, Planning and Design Division, DPWH Region IV-B)
- Montrexis Tordecilla Tamayo (OIC-chief, Planning and Design Division, DPWH Region IV-B)
- Lerma Dotado Cayco (accountant IV, BAC, DPWH Region IV-B)
- Felisardo Sevare Casuno (project engineer III, DPWH Region IV-B)
- Timojen Adiong Sacar (material engineer, DPWH Region IV-B)
- Aderma Angelie Alcazar (president and chair of the Board of Directors, Sunwest Inc.)
- Cesar Buenaventura (treasurer and Sunwest board member)
- Consuelo Dayto Aldon (Sunwest board member)
- Engineer Noel Yap Cao (Sunwest board member)
- Anthony Ngo (Sunwest board member)
Clavano said at a press conference on Tuesday that the road dike project along the Mag-Asawang Tubig River in Naujan, Oriental Mindoro, which amounted to a total of P289,498,230.06, was found to have serious structural deficiencies.
He said Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon and Oriental Mindoro Gov. Bonz Dolor inspected the project on Sept. 9 and found that the steel sheet piles used for the road dike were far below the required standards—only 3 meters in length instead of 12 meters specified in the engineering design.
Below specification
It is “highly possible that all other sheet piles used in the project were also below specification,” Clavano said.
The cases against Co were the first filed against those allegedly involved in the corruption scandal linked to irregularities in the government’s flood control projects where lawmakers and other officials received what now amounts to billions of pesos in kickbacks.
Just days before the graft and malversation charges were filed in the Sandiganbayan, Co broke his silence about his alleged involvement in the flood control anomalies with a bombshell three-part video statement accusing the President and former Speaker Martin Romualdez of receiving up to P56 billion in kickbacks from a P100-billion budget insertions allegedly ordered by the President and confirmed by the Speaker, his cousin.
Mr. Marcos did not directly respond to Co’s allegations, saying he did not even want to dignify his claim. Romualdez insists that he wasn’t involved in any wrongdoing and that his conscience was clear.
The DPWH and the ICI on Friday recommended the prosecution of Romualdez and Co on charges of plunder, graft and bribery in connection with flood control projects undertaken by Sunwest and Hi-Tone Construction and Development Corp., both linked to Co.
It was the first time that Romualdez was held criminally liable in the flood control corruption scandal. The charges against him are pending a review of the evidence by the Ombudsman.
Legal remedies
Co’s lawyer, Ruy Rondain, said on Saturday that his client would later seek legal remedies to the charges and the arrest warrants.
“For now, we trust that regular procedures were followed on the arrest warrants. We will therefore take our remedies in due course,” he told the Inquirer.
Rondain said he reserved the right to comment on the plunder and the other criminal charges against Co “until after I’ve verified the facts.”
The scandal broke out in August following disclosures by the President himself that only 15 companies out of 2,000 nationwide accounted for nearly 20 percent of the over P500 billion worth of flood control contracts across the country from 2022 to 2025.
These companies included Sunwest, cofounded by Co, and Hi-Tone, founded by his brother, Christopher Co.
His brother preceded him as representative of Ako Bicol party list, serving in the House from 2010 to 2019. Co took his place from 2019 until he resigned from Congress on Sept. 29 while he was abroad.
Co, who had served as chair of the House appropriations committee, had said that he and his family were involved with Sunwest since 2019. —WITH A REPORT FROM PNA
