Zaldy Co dragged PBBM and Romualdez into the corruption issue
Former congressman Zaldy Co accused President Bongbong Marcos (PBBM) and Congressman Martin Romualdez of masterminding the bicam insertion scheme.
After staying outside the country for several months and being silent, Co finally broke his silence. Through a video statement that he released, the former congressman said that he would not remain silent anymore and that he has supporting documents.
He also said that he was supposed to return to the country after his medical check-up, but allegedly Romualdez told him not to return to the country and that he would be taken care of, and that this was an order from the President.
In his statement, Zaldy Co also claimed that Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman called him at the start of the bicameral conference committee deliberations for the 2025 budget last year.
Allegedly, Pangandaman said that PBBM had instructed him to make the billions of pesos in insertions. Co claimed that Pangandaman told him that he could confirm this from the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office head, Adrian Bersamin, who was supposedly in the meeting with Marcos that day when he was told about this.
The former congressman said that Bersamin confirmed the order and that after a few days, a meeting happened between him, Romualdez, Pangandaman, and Bersamin to allegedly hand him P100 billion in government projects that the President supposedly wanted to insert in the budget.
According to Co, the document was in a brown leather bag that allegedly belonged to the President.
A few days after that, Co said that he informed Romualdez, Pangandaman, Bersamin, and Undersecretary Jojo Cadiz that he should just insert P50 billion because if it’s P100 million, the funds of the Department of Public Works and Highways would end up higher than the funds of the Department of Education.
Then, the following day, the former Congressman said that Pangandaman called him and relayed the supposed message from the President saying that Romualdez had already promised this, and this could not be changed.