Former Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Elizaldy Co is surprised as to why President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. allegedly claimed that he was unable to recognize the then-proposed 2025 national budget from Congress when the insertions were supposedly the idea of the chief executive himself.
Co finally broke his silence over the budget mess and the flood control controversy through a video statement on Friday, saying that everything started after Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman called him to inform that Marcos allegedly wanted P100 billion worth of insertions in the 2025 national budget.
He said Pangandaman had asked him to confirm the president’s order with Presidential Legislative Liaison Office Undersecretary Adrian Bersamin.
After confirmation, Co said he told House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez about this instruction.
‘This started when (Budget) Secretary Mina Pangandaman called when the bicam process started last year – 2024. She said, her meeting with the president had just ended and there were instructions to insert or put P100 billion worth of projects in the bicam,’ the former lawmaker said.
‘And Secretary Mina even said, ‘You can confirm (the order) with Usec. Adrian Bersamin’ because she and Bersamin were together in the meeting with President BBM (Marcos) on that day,’ Co recalled.
‘I immediately called Usec. Adrian Bersamin and I asked if during their meeting, there was really an instruction from the president to insert P100 billion. He said that was true,’ he continued.
‘Right after our conversation, I called up former Speaker Martin Romualdez and I reported to him the instruction of the president to insert P100 billion worth of projects, and he (Romualdez) told me, ‘What the president wants, he gets,’ Co narrated.
According to him, he believed that the orders came from Marcos because Bersamin said that the list of projects was placed in a brown leather bag, which he remembered to be the same bag that Marcos spoke about when he (Co), the president and Romualdez returned from a trip to Singapore.
The resigned lawmaker said that Marcos ordered the Presidential Security Command (PSC) to fetch the bag when it was left, with the chief executive saying that everything else could be left behind, but not the brown leather bag.
‘During the meeting, Usec. Adrian Bersamin gave the list worth P100 billion. I asked Usec. Adrian where the list came from. His answer was ‘from PBBM (Marcos) himself and he gave this from the brown leather bag,” Co said.
‘When Usec. Adrian Bersamin mentioned the brown leather bag, I remembered when we were in Singapore, after the election of May 2022 in Hilton Hotel, former Speaker Martin, PBBM (Marcos) and I, we were returning and going back to the Philippines,’ he noted.
‘The PSG (Presidential Security Group) chased the brown leather bag, and the president had uttered, ‘Everything can be left behind, except the brown leather bag.’ So I believed that the president really ordered this,’ he concluded.
Co also said that he even appealed to Pangandaman and Bersamin to just put half of the P100 billion to unprogrammed funds so that funds for the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) would not exceed the allocation for the Department of Education (DepEd), which would contravene constitutional provisions.
‘I informed former Speaker Martin Romualdez, Secretary Mina Pangandaman, Usec. Adrian Bersamin and Usec. Jojo Cadiz that if it was alright, only P50 billion would be put into the unprogrammed funds because the DPWH funds were excessive compared to DepEd,’ the former lawmaker remarked.
‘In practice, it is not allowed that the budget of DPWH is bigger than education. And then, the balance of P50 billion, just place it in the unprogrammed funds for the 2025 budget because it is also the Office of the President that releases it,’ he explained.
‘After one day, Secretary Mina called me and relayed the message from the president – ‘Insert it because Speaker Martin has promised that to me and that cannot be changed anymore,” the former lawmaker said in the video.
‘It was like – the king’s order cannot be bent. Again, I informed the speaker and asked for clearance about the instructions of the president, and he (Romualdez) said, ‘We can’t do anything,’ he pointed out.
This is the reason why Co is surprised with Marcos saying that he cannot recognize the 2025 budget.
‘That is why I am wondering why he could not recognize the budget when in fact, in all that were deducted and added to the agencies of government, Secretary Mina Pangandaman had asked for his approval,’ he said.
Questions have surrounded the 2025 budget ever since the budget bill was finalized by the bicameral conference committee. In January 2025, Davao City 3rd District Rep. Isidro Ungab and his ally, former President Rodrigo Duterte, both claimed that the budget was illegal since there were blanks in the bicam report that the House ratified.
Former Marikina 2nd District Rep. Stella Quimbo, who was then the acting chairperson of the House committee on appropriations, said that the blank items in the bicam report already had exact figures, insisting that the blanks were only left for final calculations.
Quimbo also said back then that it was the Senate committee on finance’s technical staff which prepared the bicam report on the General Appropriations Bill (GAB).
Furthermore, she noted that the adjustments could be seen on the Senate committee report.
Co, meanwhile, is facing several issues regarding the 2025 national budget and the infrastructure project scandal.
At one of the Senate blue ribbon committee hearings, contractor-couple Pacifico ‘Curlee’ Discaya and Cezarah ‘Sarah’ Discaya named several lawmakers – including Co – who allegedly asked for and received kickbacks from infrastructure projects, after their firms were able to bag government contracts.
Henry Alcantara and Brice Hernandez, former officials of the Bulacan – First District Engineering Office, tagged Co and other lawmakers as allegedly involved in the kickbacks scheme for infrastructure projects.
Co is also accused by Navotas City Rep. Toby Tiangco of mangling the 2025 budget, claiming that party-lists affiliated with Co received more than P4 billion worth of allocations from DPWH – P2.23 billion for Ako Bicol, P2.06 billion for Barangay Health Workers which is represented by her niece, former Rep. Natasha Co, and P13 billion under Elizaldy Co himself.
As early as August, Tiangco has been asking Co to reveal all the amendments made by the small committee for the 2025 budget, to show that the House leadership is truly serious about its push for reforms.
INQUIRER has reached out to Malacañang but it has yet to respond as of posting time.