By Diego Morra
The last thing Sen. Panfilo Lacson should do is to be perceived as lawyering for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and that’s exactly what he did when he absolved Bongbong of any role in the plunder of P25-billion from the 2025 national budget as alleged by resigned Ako Bicol Rep. Elizaldy Co.
Co, who’s luxuriating in parts unknown since July 2025, long before Marcos delivered his “Mahiya naman kayo” State of the Nation Address (SONA) and tagged the 15 contractors that cornered huge flood control projects from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to start what he deemed to be a “comprehensive” anti-corruption campaign. Co’s video presentation came after he was stripped of the chairmanship of the very lucrative House Committee on Appropriations.
From the time he appeared on the political firmament, Co had engaged in the unethical conduct of a businessman profiting from his legislative work. Former officials of the Department of Education (DepEd), one of them now confined to a wheelchair, have been charged with graft for getting substandard laptops from SunWest, a corporation controlled by the Co family, during the Duterte incumbency.
Of course, Co can make all allegations against Marcos Jr. resigned Education Undersecretary Trygve Olaivar and resigned Presidential Legislative Liaison Officer (PLLO) Adrian Bersamin from the safety of his mansions overseas but the trouble is the facticity of all his claims. The Independent Commission on Infrastructure (ICI) and other investigating bodies like the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee cannot make heads or tails in his video disclosures unless he takes the oath and swears that he tells the truth.
For Co to make a clean breast of it, the simplest thing to do is come home, face the music and admit his crimes. Being the architect of the corrupt deals at the Lower House that distributed “ghost,” “substandard” and “double-funded” DPWH projects among lawmakers, he knows pretty well how trillions of pesos lined the pockets of plunderers. The job of Congress members is to craft laws, not steal from the national coffers. Yet, there is a new job description for them as lessors of armored trucks and delivery boys for oodles of cash under the command of junior-level Marcos administration officials like Olaivar and Bersamin.
As chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, Lacson job is to ferret out the truth even as he had already confirmed the authenticity of the budget insertions alleged by Zaldy Co. The entire trouble of the corruption-ridden budget-making process is that they mock the approved bill at the plenary and insert whatever they please at the bicameral conference committee despite the rule that they cannot tamper with the Malacanang-approved National Expenditure Program (NEP) but can only realign approved funds, as what the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) has been arguing. On this score, KMP maintains that the insertions could not have been made and included in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) without the blessings of Malacanang.
Certainly, Olaivar and the younger Bersamin could not have taken it upon themselves to fritter away money without any order from their betters. Co should have known that securing “commitments” and delivering the same to bureaucrats for illegal purposes would land him in prison but he did so anyway. Naturally, Malacanang can deny to death any role in Co’s caper. Marcos Jr. doesn’t accept money so there is always plausible deniability.
Former DPWH Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo, Lacson says, refutes Zaldy Co’s claim that he delivered the SOPs to the President since it was Bernardo himself who was the pagador who managed the delivery of the kickbacks which amounted to 16% of P52 billion or around P8.3 billion in 10 deliveries.
Deliveries were made to Olaivar and Bersamin at the Diamond Hotel in armored cars. The stash ranged from P800 million to P2 billion, Bernardo confessed. He reiterated that one of the deliveries was supposed to be made at the time when Duterte was being arrested in March 11. The delivery was delayed due to the tense political situation and the SOPs accumulated to P2 billion at one time. “Kung sinuman ang nagdala ng pera, si Bernardo man o si Co (or both), ang importante ay may confirmation ngayon na may SOP o ‘commitments’ nga na dinala at tinanggap ng mga opisyal ng Palasyo,” noted Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) president Renato Reyes Jr.
“The SOP modus is real. The systematic plunder of public funds is real, is discussed at the highest levels of government, involves billions of pesos in the budget and is a normal occurrence. Noong una, maleta lang. Ngayon naman armored cars na ang gamit para sa delivery. Bilyon-bilyong piso ang pinaghahatian nila nang ganun-ganun lang,” Reyes concluded.
