Former lawmaker Elizaldy ‘Zaldy’ Co drew national attention this week with a series of ‘tell-all’ videos in which he alleged that President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez were the brains of massive budget insertions during the 2024 bicameral process.
Co also claimed that large sums of money were secretly delivered in suitcases, though he insisted he did not personally benefit from the payoffs.
The videos sparked a flurry of denials from Malacañang to Congress. The Palace branded the allegations ‘wild accusations, completely without basis,’ while former Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman disputed Co’s account, saying the claims misrepresent how the National Expenditure Program (NEP) and congressional budgeting actually work.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson, chair of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, called Co’s social-media revelations ‘lacking probative value,’ noting that they have not been verified under oath or with official documents.
But beyond the political noise, Co’s videos contain large gaps and omissions-details left out, contradicted by earlier testimonies, or unsupported by public records. A review of his statements, prior Senate hearings, and existing Inquirer reports shows a more complicated picture than the ‘tell-all’ label suggests.
What Co says
In his nearly 20-minute narration, Co said the alleged scheme began during the 2024 bicam. He claimed that Pangandaman told him there were instructions from Marcos to ‘mag-insert o magpasok ng (insert) 100 billion worth of projects.’
According to Co, Undersecretary Adrian Cristobal Bersamin supposedly confirmed that the President had ordered the P100-billion insertion. Co added that Bersamin handed over a ‘listahan na worth 100 billion (a list of projects worth P100 billion),’ saying it came directly from Marcos, pulled from a ‘brown leather bag’ that Co said he had also seen with the President in 2022.
Co further alleged that:
He informed Romualdez, who replied: ‘What the President wants, he gets.’
Marcos approved all revisions during the bicam: ‘Everything is cleared with the President.’
The Office of the President was supposedly due a 25% cut, or P25 billion, from the P100-billion insertion: ‘25% ang SOP na kailangan ibigay kay BBM mismo (Twenty-five percent is the SOP that must be given to BBM himself).’
Co insisted: ‘Wala pong perang napunta sa akin. Dumaan lang po ang pera sa akin.’
(None of the funds went to me; they only passed through me.)
He also accused Romualdez of threatening him in March 2025: ‘He will shoot me if I talk.’ He said the former Speaker later warned him not to return to the Philippines because someone might ‘hire the police to kill me.’
What he left out
While the videos are framed as a full account, several important details were either omitted or glossed over:
1. Co confirmed Orly Guteza’s allegations-but omitted that Guteza said he also delivered money to Co himself.
In his video, Co affirms portions of Orly Regala Guteza’s testimony, saying: ‘Totoo po ‘yung sinasabi ni Orly Guteza na nag-deliver siya sa Forbes Park. Totoo rin po ang sinasabi ni Guteza na nag-deliver siya sa Malacañang.’
(What Orly Guteza said about making a delivery to Forbes Park is true. His statement about delivering to Malacañang is also true.)
But Co does not mention that, during the Blue Ribbon Committee hearing, Guteza also testified that he delivered ‘basura’-a code word he said referred to bundles of cash-first to Co’s own residences before proceeding to deliver Romualdez’s share.
This part of the testimony is absent from Co’s retelling, even though he cites other elements of Guteza’s statements as true.
Graphics by Ed Lustan/Inquirer.net
Complicating matters further, the status of Guteza’s statements has itself become part of the controversy. In October 2025, the Manila Regional Trial Court ruled that the signature of the lawyer whose name appeared on the notarization of Guteza’s affidavit did not match the lawyer’s actual signature, raising questions about the document’s authentication.
Since then, Guteza has not appeared publicly.
Despite these developments, and despite his selective citation of Guteza’s testimony, Co does not address the portions of the witness accounts that directly implicate his own residences and staff in the alleged cash movements.
2. He showed photos of luggage but did not say where they were taken.
From the videos, Co flashes images of suitcases he claims were used to transport cash. Co also posted on his official Facebook page screenshots showing details of the supposed cash deliveries and the suitcases used to transport billions, allegedly for Marcos and Romualdez.
However:
He did not identify the location where the photos were taken.
He did not confirm whether they were from his house or condo unit.
The bags could not have been photographed inside Romualdez’s home, based on earlier Blue Ribbon clarifications.
These omissions leave the authenticity and relevance of the images unclear.
3. Co acknowledged Paul Estrada and Mark Tecsay were his staffers-but did not address their role as alleged couriers in Senate testimony.
In his video, Co refers to ‘aking mga tao Paul Estrada [at] Mark Tecsay’-confirming that both men were under his direct supervision, but he does not describe what they were actually doing.
He makes no mention of Senate testimony stating that these same staff members routinely received and counted cash inside his residences.
Co also does not address detailed accounts from multiple witnesses describing large sums of money delivered to his BGC and Pasig homes-statements that placed him and his staff at the center of a structured courier operation involving luggage, vans, and coded ‘basura’ deliveries.
In his sworn statement, Guteza said he was hired as a security consultant for Co under the Ako Bicol Party-list from December 2024 to August 2025, reporting directly to Co’s residence at Horizon Homes in Shangri-La, Bonifacio Global City.
Guteza said that whenever he was instructed to deliver money, he would pick up the cash from another of Co’s properties-on Ladybug Street, Valle Verde 6 in Pasig-where Co was also known to reside.
He testified that the money was code-named ‘basura’ (‘garbage’), allegedly packed in suitcases containing P48 million to P50 million each and labeled with post-it notes indicating the amount. He identified Co’s executive assistants, John Paul Estrada and Mark Tecsay, as the staffers who regularly received, handled, and counted the cash inside Co’s Pasig home.
‘Kapag duty kami sa basura, kalimitang dinadala sa bahay ni Congressman Zaldy Co sa Valle Verde 6 at tinatanggap nina Mark at Paul,’ Guteza told senators.
(When we’re on duty for the garbage collections, we usually bring it to Congressman Zaldy Co’s house in Valle Verde 6, where Mark and Paul receive it.)
Former Bulacan 1st district engineer Henry Alcantara also testified that he met Paul and Mark in Co’s Pasig residence. Former assistant district engineer Brice Hernandez, meanwhile, said roughly P1 billion in cash was once delivered to Co’s BGC unit and received by a staff member identified only as Pau-packed in more than 20 pieces of luggage transported via six or seven vans.
In the transcript, Co merely says his people kept ‘record’ of deliveries, but he limits these to the drops allegedly made at Forbes Park and Malacañang. He does not acknowledge the testimonies identifying his homes, his staff, or himself as part of the operational chain described in the Senate hearings.
4. Co’s P100-billion figure contradicts earlier, much higher insertion estimates across both chambers of Congress.
Throughout his ‘tell-all,’ Co frames the alleged directive as a P100-billion insertion during the 2024 bicameral conference committee-a number he attributes directly to the President, and which he claims resulted in P25 billion going to Marcos through a supposed 25-percent cut.
However, this figure does not align with the larger insertion amounts that had already been publicly disclosed months earlier. Previous media reports cited documents that the bicameral conference committee approved P142.7 billion in additional allocations, an amount at the center of Senate questioning and public scrutiny.
Graphics by Ed Lustan/Inquirer.net
This number appeared in the Senate’s own discussions on ‘bicam insertions,’ particularly in relation to flood-control projects and cross-agency reallocations.
These public reports made the P142.7 billion total the benchmark figure associated with bicameral realignments-far higher than the P100 billion that Co repeatedly cites. Yet in his videos, Co does not explain the gap between his number and the larger amount reflected in official Senate discussions and earlier budget investigations.
This discrepancy raises questions about the scope of Co’s account, particularly because the publicly reported bicam insertion figure is already significantly higher than what he attributes to the President.
His omission of the P142.7-billion amount, a figure established long before his videos surfaced, leaves a major component of the budget-insertion controversy unaddressed.
5. He did not address his own role in the alleged flood-control network.
One of the most striking omissions in Co’s ‘tell-all’ is his complete silence on the controversies that placed him at the center of the country’s multibillion-peso flood-control system long before his latest videos surfaced.
For years, public records, contract databases, and testimony in Congress have linked Co. directly and through his family’s construction empire to a vast network of DPWH flood-control projects. These projects, many clustered in Bicol and nearby regions, were awarded in unusually high volumes to firms connected to the Co family, most prominently Sunwest Construction and Development Corp., the company he co-founded in 1997.
Government data analyzed in earlier reports showed that from 2016 to mid-2025, Sunwest and its joint ventures secured P86.1 billion in public works contracts. Nearly half of these-P40.2 billion-flowed into Region V, Co’s home region, aligning closely with his political base. Of this total, P33 billion came from flood-control packages alone, making Sunwest one of the country’s top flood-control contractors during the Marcos Jr. administration.
Graphics by Ed Lustan/Inquirer.net
Yet in his videos, Co makes no mention of this record. He does not explain why his family firms became dominant players in flood control, nor does he address concerns that these allocations ballooned during the period when he held the powerful House appropriations chairmanship.
He also sidesteps the fact that Sunwest’s flood-control contracts surged sharply under the current administration-from P2.7 billion during the Arroyo years to more than P10 billion under Marcos Jr., a 272-percent increase.
Another family company, Hi-Tone Construction, likewise saw major gains in its flood-control awards. These patterns were raised by watchdog groups and lawmakers, who questioned whether political influence shaped procurement outcomes.
Co likewise does not address the controversies surrounding his supposed divestment from Sunwest. Although he has long claimed to have left the company in 2019, corporate and foundation records indicate that his wife remains an incorporator in a Sunwest-supported foundation, and watchdog groups have noted that he continues to appear as a beneficial owner in some Sunwest-linked entities.
His videos do not attempt to reconcile this with the company’s rapid growth during his tenure in Congress.
Nor does Co discuss the mounting calls for accountability after a presidential fact-finding body named Sunwest among the top contractors that cornered more than P10 billion in flood-control projects from 2022 to 2025. The naming reignited public attention on his political and business connections-and raised questions about why some regions under Sunwest contracts remain chronically flooded.
Throughout all this, the former lawmaker’s videos portray him solely as a reluctant intermediary: a man following orders from higher officials, a courier of funds, and someone being silenced or threatened.
However, the narrative overlooks the complex, well-documented history that positioned him at the center of the country’s flood-control spending-a history involving billions in public works, a family-run contractor empire, and a trail of projects that remain under audit, unfinished, or unverified on the ground.
His failure to address any of these issues leaves a substantial void in his account. For many observers, it is what Co did not say-about the projects, contractors, and systemic patterns tied to his name-that raises the most difficult questions.
6. Co omitted the inconsistencies in his own public statements.
Another major gap in Co’s ‘tell-all’ is that he does not reconcile the contradictions in his own previous public statements, conflicts that have emerged across his interviews, press statements, Senate references, and now his latest videos.
First, Co has consistently denied personally benefiting from the alleged insertions. In several public statements, he insisted: ‘Wala pong perang napunta sa akin.’ He repeated variations of this denial in previous statements and in the video transcript, framing himself as someone through whom funds ‘dumaan lang.’
Graphics by Ed Lustan/Inquirer.net
Yet other parts of the public record show Co describing actions and relationships that go beyond a purely passive role:
Document review and involvement in budget discussions:
Co’s videos do not address his previously documented involvement in reviewing budget documents-involvement that is expected of a lawmaker in his former position. As chair of the House Committee on Appropriations during the 19th Congress, Co oversaw the chamber’s work on the national budget, a role that legally placed him at the center of discussions on amendments, adjustments, and agency allocations.
His ‘tell-all’ does not acknowledge this previous involvement nor explain how it squares with his current portrayal of being merely a passive conduit following orders.
Knowledge of and naming couriers and staff:
Co names staffers such as Paul Estrada and Mark Tecsay in his video, and he has elsewhere acknowledged familiarity with people involved in physical deliveries. Separately, sworn statements and Senate witnesses identified those same individuals as persons who received or handled cash during the period under investigation.
Co’s videos do not address the overlap between his naming of staff and the testimony describing their alleged roles.
Contradictory posture on agency and agency of action:
At times, Co portrays himself as an insider with direct lines to cabinet officials and as someone who advised on funding allocations; at other times, he presents himself as a subordinate compelled to follow orders. The record includes statements supporting both impressions: Co’s own descriptions of meetings with officials, and his claims that he ‘followed orders.’ The videos do not explain these divergent portrayals.
Taken together, the public record shows a mix of denials, admissions of procedural involvement, and references to named staff and deliveries-but Co’s recent videos do not attempt to reconcile these conflicting strands.
The result is an unresolved set of inconsistencies: Co continues to deny personal gain while earlier statements and witness accounts document his proximity to documents, people, and processes at the center of the controversy.
Standing questions
Co ends his videos with an emotional appeal: ‘Ginawa ko lang ang utos sa akin. handa na akong harapin ang lahat.’
(I only did what I was ordered to do. I’m ready to face everything.)
But even with the length and detail of his ‘tell-all,’ significant questions remain unanswered. Questions arising not from conjecture but from the documented record, testimonies presented in the Senate, and Co’s own prior statements.
Despite repeated calls from lawmakers and even the President for him to return to the Philippines and make his disclosures under oath, Co remains abroad. His videos do not address why he has not appeared in any Senate hearing or official inquiry, nor when he intends to face investigators directly.
Taken together, these unresolved gaps leave major elements of Co’s narrative unaddressed. Until these inconsistencies are clarified-through sworn testimony, documents, and verifiable evidence – his ‘tell-all’ remains a partial account, one that opens as many questions as it attempts to answer.