Category: Philippines Daily Inquirer

Sen. Francis Escudero on Monday pointed a finger at former House Speaker and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez for supposedly orchestrating allegations linking him and other senators to anomalous flood control projects.

‘There’s only one person behind this script and ‘sarswela (local theater and opera show),” Escudero said in a manifestation before the plenary session on Monday. ‘Why is it that in the House of Representatives, also right here in the Senate, and in some media outlets, they are unable to blurt his name? Then, I will say it: Martin Romualdez.’

The senator questioned the absence of Romualdez and other congressmen from ongoing investigations, despite being named in affidavits and testimonies.

He also alleged that House lawmakers wield direct control over the budget in hundreds of districts across the country, including funds intended for infrastructure and flood control projects.

‘Is this how powerful Martin Romualdez is? That despite no longer being speaker, it appears that he remains ‘the name that cannot be mentioned,’ and he can still do what he wants in terms of selective justice,’ he said.

Deflection

Escudero and Romualdez previously led the two chambers in the 19th Congress and briefly in the 20th Congress. Escudero was ousted as Senate President on Sept. 8 while Romualdez stepped down from the speakership nine days later.

In a statement on Monday, Romualdez said Escudero’s speech was merely recycled accusations. He also noted that the senator chose to deflect instead of answering allegations against him. (See related story on this page.)

‘With respect, what we heard was not an exposé but a [Duterte Diehard Supporters] script-the same recycled accusations we have long seen on troll pages and social media posts. Nothing new and no truth to them either,’ he said in a statement.

Escudero, on the other hand, said Romualdez could not escape accountability following the testimony of retired Sgt. Orly Guteza, a former VIP security for Rep. Elizaldy Co, that he had delivered 37 pieces of luggage containing cash amounting to P1.7 billion to the Makati residence of the Leyte congressman. Co resigned as Ako Bicol party list representative on Monday.

‘Let all those who were name-dropped answer and be investigated – all congressmen, senators, and other officials mentioned. And they should include Martin Romualdez,’ he said.

Bigger fish?

He lamented that Romualdez was neither included in the recommendation of the National Bureau of Investigation for possible graft and bribery charges nor in the asset freeze order by the Anti-Money Laundering Council.

He said witnesses kept on name-dropping senators despite the lack of direct evidence implicating them.

‘Why? Is it because the senators are the bigger fish, their positions are higher, and they are more well known than congressmen, and they are hoping that the anger of the people over the anomalous flood control projects would subside, and they would be able to escape their accountability?’ Escudero said.

He also vowed to defend himself against malicious accusations. ‘In fact, I will be filing the necessary and appropriate charges against my accuser [.] I am confident that I will be vindicated and declared innocent,’ he said.

‘Mob justice’

He warned against political machinations aimed at weakening the Senate as an institution, misleading the public and shielding the real masterminds from accountability.

‘For that is what is happening now – selective justice and mob justice. Members of the Senate have been thrown off a cliff and before the court of public opinion in an attempt to mollify the people’s rage, thereby covering up the real perpetrators and giving them a chance to get away,’ Escudero said.

‘Are we truly for transparency and accountability? Or are we merely offering a politically convenient sacrificial lamb?’ he asked.

He ended his speech by reiterating his opposition to Romualdez’s alleged efforts to deflect scrutiny and destabilize institutions.

Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo ‘Ping’ Lacson made a cryptic remark on Tuesday about an ‘overly vocal, boastful or aggressive’ person.

Lacson did not name names, but he used the pronoun ‘he,’ suggesting he was referring to a male individual.

‘There is a saying: ‘The loudest one in the room is the weakest’,’ Lacson said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

‘He is overly vocal, boastful, or aggressive so he can create an image of strength through noise,’ he also said.

The best way to deal with such a personality is ‘to ignore and make him stand on an empty platform,’ according to the senator.

Lacson chairs the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, which saw him locking horns with former panel chair Rodante Marcoleta. He also listened to bombshell revelations implicating current and former senators in the flood control anomalies.

Lacson admitted the revelations made during the hearings pained him – a sentiment he expressed when asked to react on Sen. Francis Escudero’s Monday manifestation that senators are being made a ‘fall guy’ in flood control anomalies.

‘I would like to reiterate my previous and oft-repeated statement that we will go where the evidence leads us,’ the senator told reporters in a text message, adding that no senator is being ‘targeted’ and neither will anyone be ‘shielded or spared’ by the probe.

‘No matter how unpopular, even painful for me, to hear the names of my colleagues being implicated by resource persons, I will not be deterred,’ Lacson said.

During the Blue Ribbon committee hearing, Escudero and former Senators Ramon ‘Bong’ Revilla Jr. and Nancy Binay were alleged by former Public Works and Highways Undersecretary Robert Bernardo to be involved in a purported scheme involving anomalous flood control projects.

All of them denied the allegations.

Aside from them, Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Joel Villanueva were also the subject of a damning testimony by Brice Hernandez, a former assistant district engineer of DPWH-Bulacan, during a House infrastructure committee hearing.

Estrada and Villanueva refuted the allegations.

Hernandez alleged that Villanueva and Estrada maneuvered to allocate P600 million and P355 million for funding in Bulacan’s first district in exchange for an alleged 30-percent cut.

Over the weekend, Lacson disclosed that ‘almost all’ senators in the 19th Congress inserted at least P100 billion worth of items in the 2025 General Appropriations Act.

Estrada, in thinly veiled allusion to Lacson’s revelation, on Monday said: ‘Since a senator has already mentioned that we have significant insertions, let’s allocate them to the Office of the Vice President so she can be a working vice president.’ /apl /atm

Gleer Codilla, a former Manila Arena security guard who was charged in 2022 in a Manila court over the missing ‘sabungeros’ (cockfighting enthusiasts), submitted an affidavit to the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday in support of the police complaint against businessman Charlie ‘Atong’ Ang and several others.

Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Charlie Guhit said Codilla, who is considered a witness in the DOJ proceedings, filed the affidavit backing the complaint submitted by the Philippine National Police against Ang and company last month to the justice department.

‘With respect to the submission of the other affidavits, they are witnesses. Particularly, I remember Gleer Codilla,’ Guhit said in an ambush interview after the second preliminary investigation conducted by the DOJ.

The PNP complaint accuses Ang, celebrity Gretchen Barretto, and more than 50 other respondents of multiple counts of murder, kidnapping, and serious illegal detention, among other charges.

Separate case

Codilla, along with whistleblower Julie Patidongan, is a respondent in the kidnapping and serious illegal detention case filed with a Manila court in 2022 over the alleged abduction of sabungeros John Claude Inonog, James Baccay, Marlon Baccay, Rondel Cristorum, Mark Joseph Velasco, and Rowel Gomez.

One of the witnesses in that case, Denmark Sinfuego, alleged that he saw Codilla with the victims as they were being moved from their designated cockhouse to the arena’s basement, where they were forced to board a gray van.

Sinfuego further testified that he saw Patindongan, Codilla, and fellow Arena guard Mark Zabala with victims Velasco, Gomez and Cristorum. Behind them, other Arena guards identified as Johnry Consolacion, Roberto Matillano, and Virgilio Bayog carried the victims’ personal belongings.

According to Guhit, the PNP-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group submitted copies of flash drives containing evidence to the panel of prosecutors on Monday, which were viewed by the parties during the hearing.

‘I will not anymore disclose what are the contents of the USB because that will be part of the resolution of the case of this preliminary investigation,’ Guhit said.

The preliminary investigation will continue on Nov. 3, with prosecutors requiring Ang to personally appear and swear to his counter-affidavit. INQ

Alert police officers manning a checkpoint in Maasim, Sarangani province, arrested a man on Monday for illegally transporting 25 endangered bird species, police reported.

Col. Jerone Orville Panganiban, acting provincial director of the Sarangani Police Provincial Office, said personnel from the 2nd Sarangani Provincial Mobile Force Company (SPMFC) and the Maasim Municipal Police Station intercepted a Mitsubishi Montero Sport during a routine checkpoint operation at Sitio Seguil, Barangay Tinoto.

The driver, identified as ‘Junior,’ 34, a resident of Digos City, could not present documents to legalize his transport of endangered wildlife.

Panganiban said the police verified with Forest Protection Officer (FPO) Jalal Pantao of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), who confirmed the suspect had no transport permit.

The Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) of Kiamba documented a total of 25 hornbills, comprising six Mindanao hornbills and 19 Rufous hornbills. The DENR later confirmed these as Mindanao Wreathed hornbills and Southern Rufous hornbills, Panganiban said.

The hornbills were immediately transported and turned over to the DENR-12 Regional Wildlife Rescue Center for documentation and safekeeping.

Panganiban said CENRO Kiamba is preparing to file charges against the arrested violator for violating Republic Act 9147, also known as the Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act.

‘The Sarangani Police Provincial Office, in close coordination with DENR, reiterates its commitment to protecting the environment and upholding wildlife laws to preserve biodiversity in the region,’ Panganiban said. (PNA)/coa

Tourism Malaysia is participating in the 3rd annual Travel Sale Expo (TSE) 2025 organized by the Global Tourism Business Association (GTBA) in collaboration with Oneklik Event Management The expo is being held at the Megatrade Hall in SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City from September 26 until September 28, 2025. The event aims to highlight unique travel destinations ranging from urban areas to rural landscapes while promoting immersive travel experiences and cultural exchanges. This aligns with this year’s theme, ‘Your Gateway to the World.’ emphasizes Malaysia’s role as an accessible and diverse travel destination for international travelers.

One of the standout features of this year’s expo is the Malaysia Pavilion, designed to resemble a Traditional Malay House. The pavilion provides visitors with a glimpse into Malaysia’s cultural richness, offering interactive exhibits, authentic Malaysian cuisine, and a chance to engage with representatives from various sectors of the Malaysian tourism industry.

Joining Tourism Malaysia in the pavilion are key industry players including Malaysia Airlines, KL Hop-On Hop-Off, Berjaya Hotel Makati and affiliated travel agency MAVP Travel and Tours, which promotes easy exploration of Kuala Lumpur’s top tourist spots. The booth features a range of Malaysian experiences, from culinary delights to cultural performances brought from Malaysia. Visitors can also participate in exclusive prize draws, try-on traditional costume generously supported by partners such as HOHO, Touche Production, Berjaya Hotel Makati and Solaire Resort North. This year, Malaysia is aiming to attract 43 million foreign visitors, with a target of 47 million for the upcoming Visit Malaysia 2026. From January to July of this year, there were 349,012 Filipinos visited Malaysia, reflecting an 8.7% increase compared to the same period in 2024.

The Travel Sale Expo 2025 is a great platform to help increase the number of Filipino travelers visiting Malaysia. This initiative not only seeks to attract more visitors to the country but also aims to foster strong connections and meaningful partnerships among various organizations, clients, and travelers.

Explore Malaysia at the Travel Sale Expo 2025 at SM Megamall and discover your next getaway.

Damosa Land Inc. has secured the approval of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its P5.2-million rental pool program, making it the first company to register under the regulator’s new guidelines for real estate securities. The SEC on Tuesday said Damosa Land’s registration statement covered 100 certificates of participation in the condotel project of TRYP by Wyndham Samal, although this is still subject to its compliance with remaining requirements.

The certificates cover 94 standard class condotel units with an offer price of P50,000 each, four deluxe class units worth P75,000 each, and two suite class units at P100,000 each.

Each unit is automatically included in the rental pool program upon purchase. These will be marketed, rented and managed as hotel accommodation for hotel guests without transferring ownership.

Under rental pool arrangements, buyers acquire units that are collectively managed by the developer or a third-party operator. In return, buyers receive a share in the developer’s income earned through renting out the units.

Based on the SEC’s Memorandum Circular No. 12 Series of 2024, rental pool agreements are investment contracts and, therefore, securities that need to be registered with the commission before being offered to the public.

The guidelines cover investment contracts, certificates of participation, profit-sharing agreements and other forms of securities issued by real estate developers in relation to rental pool agreements, such as condotels.

Two minor earthquakes swayed the island town of Panukulan, Quezon, and the municipality of Tingloy in Batangas province on Tuesday afternoon.

The Philippine Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said a magnitude 3.4 tectonic tremor hit 53 kilometers northeast of Panukulan with a depth of 10 kilometers at 12:47 p.m. A tectonic earthquake is produced by sudden movement along faults and plate boundaries.

Phivolcs said they were not expecting damage or aftershocks from the earthquake.

Panukulan and two other municipalities – Polillo and Burdeos – are located on Polillo Island off Lamon Bay, facing the Pacific Ocean in the northern part of the province.

In Tingloy town, a magnitude 2.8 tectonic earthquake jolted the locality at 12:27 p.m.

Phivolcs said the tremor struck 13 km southwest of the locality with a depth of 3 km.

Instrumental intensity I was recorded in Puerto Galera town in Oriental Mindoro province. Instrumental intensities are measured by an intensity scale.

Batangas is one of the most seismically active areas in the Philippines, which is generated by the Lubang Fault, located between Mindoro Island and Batangas

Celebrity couple Rocco Nacino and Melissa Gohing are set to become a family of four as they announced the latter’s pregnancy with their second child.

Nacino and Gohing revealed they are expecting through a video shared on their Instagram pages on Monday, Sept. 29.

In the clip, the couple, donning denim ensembles, are lip-synching to Britney Spears’ ‘.Baby One More Time’ while in a video shoot with their firstborn Ezren. Toward the end of the video, Nacino and Gohing exclaim ‘hit me baby one more time,’ and then the athlete opens her jacket to show her growing baby bump.

‘Hit me baby one more time. Coming soon this 2026!’ the caption read.

They also added in the video a Bible verse and wrote, ‘We prayed. He answered.’

Fellow celebrities including Carla Abellana, Valeen Montenegro, Ara Mina and Diana Zubiri celebrated the announcement as they sent congratulatory greetings to the couple via the comments section.

Nacino and Gohing had been in a relationship for three years before they got married in January 2021. The couple, who initially struggled getting pregnant due to Gohing’s polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) diagnosis, welcomed Ezren Raffaello in October 2022

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will make sure the P6.793-trillion national budget for 2026 will be free of any anomalies, Palace press officer Claire Castro said on Monday.

Castro stressed in a briefing that the president would veto any questionable allocations in next year’s budget.

‘As we have said, the President truly wants the budget to be correct and allocated to the right programs for the future and the benefit of the people,’ she said.

‘We can be assured, with all these things happening, that the people can expect the 2026 budget to be in order and that the President will not allow anomalous projects,’ Castro added.

‘The president,’ she said, ‘already said before that if there are any mistakes or anomalies again in the 2026 budget, he will veto them.’

‘Humongous’ insertions

Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson revealed on Sunday that ‘almost all’ of the 24 senators in the 19th Congress had inserted at least P100 billion worth of items in the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA).

Lacson noted that the roster of congressmen who made similar insertions was equally lengthy.

The chair of the Senate blue ribbon committee described the individual insertions by his colleagues as ‘humongous.’

‘I have never seen such amounts. Before the Priority Development Assistance Fund was declared unconstitutional in 2013, pork amounted to hundreds of millions. Now it’s at least P100 billion total for senators alone,’ said Lacson.

The insertions were made when the spending bill reached either the ‘small committee’ after it hurdled the second reading or during the bicameral conference committee when members of the House of Representatives and Senate reconciled the provisions of the third reading version of their respective bills.

These amendments, discussed not in open plenary but made in closed-door meetings by only a handful of lawmakers, were then parked under big-ticket projects of agencies, including the flood mitigation program of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

‘No detailed knowledge’

But according to Castro, Mr. Marcos is opposed to such practices and did not know the extent of the amendments made.

‘When the 2025 budget was being crafted, the president definitely did not have detailed knowledge of what insertions certain senators had made,’ Castro said.

‘But now, because the president has truly seen and taken notice of what happened to the funds for flood control projects, he would make sure that these insertions would not happen again,’ she added.

Directing her remarks to legislators, Castro said, ‘As shown by the public’s anger – something that the president also feels – we can see that they should have already learned to fulfill their mandate of being true public servants.’

Zero allocation

The Department of Budget and Management submitted to Congress in August the 2026 National Expenditure Program amounting to P6.793 trillion. It was 7.4 percent higher than the enacted 2025 budget of P6.326 trillion and equivalent to 22 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

For the 2025 GAA, Marcos vetoed P26.065 billion worth of DPWH projects related to flood mitigation and control for being ‘inconsistent’ with the government’s infrastructure program.

He has ordered zero budget to be allocated to locally funded flood control projects under the 2026 proposed budget of the DPWH.

The move created a fiscal space of P255.5 billion, which will be realigned to other agencies to fund the government’s social programs.

‘Here comes the rain again,’ to quote The Eurythmics. Falling on my head like a memory, the memory-still very fresh-is of staggering amounts of money stolen by contractors and congressmen, even senators, in the form of kickbacks, suitcases full of kickbacks, for flood control projects that never once saw the light of day.

Along with rising water levels, school closures, and lost working days, sudden downpours summon with alarming frequency the ghosts that we have so desperately and ineffectively failed to banish from our cursed existence: the ghosts of corruptions past, present, and future.

Sudden downpours summon with alarming frequency the ghosts that we have so desperately and ineffectively failed to banish from our cursed existence: the ghosts of corruptions past, present, and future.

These ghosts live not just in luxury penthouse apartments and sprawling mansions in gated villlages, basement garages lined with top-of-the-line European cars, or row upon row of Birkin bags. They cling to every substandard bridge that’s collapsed, every potholed road that leads to nowhere, and every floodgate whose construction was approved and funded but never built.

And they taunt us from their social media accounts, thanks to their clueless nepo babies who fancy themselves influencers as they flaunt their ostentatious (and often tasteless) lifestyles-filched from our taxes.

Money, money, money

A recent report issued by the United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese named the companies are aiding and abetting an ‘economy of genocide,’ fully complicit in Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people of Gaza. The list includes tech giants such as Alphabet, Microsoft, and Palantir, as well as industry titans like Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar, and even Hyundai, to name a few.

When asked why Israel’s genocide continues, she replied, ‘because it is lucrative for many.’

When asked why Israel’s genocide continues, she replied, ‘because it is lucrative for many.’

By the same token, one could say that an economy of corruption persists in the Philippines because it is lucrative for many. So lucrative for contractors in particular that many of them were emboldened to run for office and today sit as elected members of Congress. One could thus conclude that being an elected representative of the people and holding office is extremely lucrative for many, despite official monthly salaries not exceeding P334,059 for a senator, congressman or department secretary, while a department undersecretary earns P226,319, max.

These are decent salaries in a country where the median monthly salary is P44,979.62, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). However, they won’t necessarily cover the mortgage payments on that unit in Aurelia, much less an afternoon’s shopping spree at Chanel in Paris. Ditto a business class ticket to New York.

Yet corruption apparently pays, if the ongoing Senate investigative hearings are anything to go by. And funds these lavish lifestyles. It’s an ecosystem entrenched in hierarchy, too, it seems, where everybody has their price for looking the other way and getting things done. Or in the case of ghost projects, not done.

Ten percent for the departmental employee who issues the necessary permits, fifteen percent for the next higher-up and so on, each one taking their cut of the project, with an astonishing thirty percent (if not more) for the congressman or senator, bundled into suitcases and hand-delivered to their homes by trusted bagmen.

No Lalamove for this sort of delivery. For a project that’s worth billions, that’s easily a van-load of suitcases. Or, to use the clever little code name given to these money drops: basura. As in, ‘Take the trash to Congressman So-and-So’ (who’s another piece of trash, by the way).

Selling your soul

The levels of meta here are just beyond. They’ve rubbished our own hard-earned contributions to the country’s coffers; they’ve rubbished the trust given to them by virtue of being elected into public office; they’ve certainly rubbished all those so-called Filipino and Christian values of honesty, hard work, and integrity. They’ve rubbished themselves. And they’ve rubbished the country’s reputation.

This is what really irks me. That deep down, they have such little regard for the country they profess to love, and zero respect for the people they are supposed to serve, that they can’t even do a proper job of building what they were contracted to do.

Take your ten percent. Yes, you-engineer, contractor, undersecretary, congressman, senator. Hell, take your twenty, even your thirty percent. I don’t really care. But build the goddamn flood control barriers to the requisite standards of quality, safety, and durability. Present something decent to show for the billions you stole apart from the fourteen houses in Forbes Park.

Build the goddamn flood control barriers to the requisite standards of quality, safety, and durability. Present something decent to show for the billions you stole apart from the fourteen houses in Forbes Park.

Have a modicum of shame, if not for your countrymen who are literally drowning in fetid flood waters every time it rains, then for the foreign direct investments you keep trying to woo to our shores. Is it any surprise that investors choose Vietnam, Thailand, or Indonesia over the Philippines when corruption is so rampant, the infrastructure so inferior, and the cost of doing business so high? In an economy of corruption, basura begets basura.

We now know the price for your willingness to compromise your own morals in pursuit of wealth, power, and, it would seem, immunity from prosecution. Apparently, it runs to billions. But what is the price for you to grow a conscience?

The great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, writing with acute eloquence over fifty years ago about his own people’s exile and occupation, penned these lines:

‘I don’t know who sold our homeland

But I saw who paid the price.’

How profoundly tragic it is that we Filipinos know exactly who sold our homeland. And that we will still be paying the price for generations to come.