Lawmaker still hopes controversial Zaldy Co will return home
Embattled lawmaker Elizaldy “Zaldy” Co “can no longer make excuses” and must return to the country to explain the controversial insertions he allegedly made in the 2025 national budget, Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco said.
On Saturday, the lawmaker stressed that it was finally time for Co, representative of Ako Bicol party list and former appropriations committee chair in the 19th Congress, to “face the people and explain where his insertions in the 2025 national budget went.”
“Many thanks to our new Speaker (Faustino Dy III) for acting on this issue right away. We have long said that Congressman Zaldy must attend the hearings because there are questions that only he can answer,” Tiangco said.
Tiangco’s statement follows Dy’s notice revoking Co’s travel clearance and ordering him to return to the Philippines within 10 days. Co is supposedly seeking medical treatment in the United States.
Tiangco added that Dy’s directive—his first edict since being elected unopposed last Wednesday to replace Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez, himself besieged by allegations of corruption—showed Congress was serious about reforms.
With Co’s expected return, Tiangco expressed hope that the lawmaker would finally release records of the 2024 small committee’s budget deliberations.
Other evidence
“After such a long time, I hope he is now ready to release the minutes and reports of their small committee meetings that we have been asking for,” he said.
“The Filipino people need to know. Only by baring all the insertions made in the small committee can we show real transparency and preserve the integrity of Congress as an institution,” he added.
Co has been repeatedly pressed to clarify his role in the last-minute realignments and insertions to the 2025 General Appropriations Act that led to the ballooning of the Department of Public Works and Highways budget in violation of the constitutional mandate to ensure the largest allocation for education.
These insertions were later linked to alleged anomalous allocations for flood control, roadworks, and other infrastructure projects.
Specifically, critics say these amendments—reportedly crafted by the bicameral conference committee that reconciled the Senate and House versions, and which was chaired by Co—funneled billions of pesos into projects that were later found to be either “ghost” or substandard.
Co has since denied the allegations, but he has not been physically present in any session since the 20th Congress convened in July.
