Question: Does anyone here recall the flood control scandal of last year? Sorry for asking, but it seems to have dropped off the radar.
In July–September 2025, it was alleged that government funds allocated for “priority” flood control projects under the Department of Public Works and Highways were siphoned off through “ghost” projects — dikes and drainage systems paid for but never built or only partially completed.
Finance Secretary Ralph Recto estimated up to ₱118.5 billion ($2 billion) in flood-control funding may have been lost to corruption over two years. Former House appropriations chair Zaldy Co and House Speaker Martin Romualdez emerged as central figures — Romualdez resigned in September amid testimony of cash deliveries to his residence, while Co fled the country as a fugitive from justice.
Eleven months on, here’s a scorecard of who’s actually been prosecuted — and who hasn’t. Much of the following is based on a 300-day retrospective published in the online newspaper Daily Tribune.
Still in trial
With regard to the allegations made last summer, the first scandal-related case reached the Sandiganbayan on November 18, 2025, when the Ombudsman charged former Ako Bicol representative Zaldy Co, several DPWH Mimaropa officials, and Sunwest Construction’s board with graft and malversation over a ₱289-million ghost dike in Naujan, Oriental Mindoro.
Co fled overseas. The court declared him a fugitive in March, ordered 16 of his properties worth over ₱215 million seized, and the DILG, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, sought an Interpol “red notice” in April before President Marcos announced his arrest in Prague on April 16. It is unclear whether a “red notice” was actually issued, however.
An Interpol Red Notice is an international alert asking law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action. It’s issued at the request of a member country — in Co’s case, the Philippines — when there’s a valid arrest warrant or court order back home.
Anti-money-laundering investigators told the court Co personally pocketed ₱802 million in kickbacks from Sunwest, and in June the court rejected his co-accused’s bid to dismiss the case before the defense even presents evidence.
Co implicates Malacañang
Co is still in exile. To bolster his version of events, starting November 14, 2025, Co released a series of videotaped statements from hiding accusing the president himself of involvement. Some of these videos went viral; however, on investigation, they turned out to be AI-generated fakes.
He said Budget Secretary Lucas Bersamin told him Marcos had ordered roughly ₱100 billion in budget insertions, mostly flood-control projects, placed in what Co called a “brown leather bag.”
Details about these events were widely published in major Philippine media outlets at the time.
The claims come from Co’s first recorded video statement, released on November 14, 2025, while he was in hiding. It was not made under oath, or in court, or in a sworn affidavit.
The statement was made in a pre-recorded video distributed by his camp and widely reported by major Philippine media.
He claimed he personally delivered suitcases of cash to Marcos and to then-Speaker Martin Romualdez, but this was never verified.
He said Marcos personally took 25 percent of the ₱100 billion as kickbacks — another unverified claim.
Co was inconsistent, however. In another video, he revised the kickback figure to ₱56 billion total, split between Marcos and Romualdez, disputing an earlier ₱21 billion estimate that had circulated at the ICI.
Malacañang’s Response
Malacañang rightfully dismissed the claims as lies, unsupported by evidence, and some lawmakers and observers questioned whether the videos were even authentic — Senator Win Gatchalian publicly wondered aloud whether AI had been used to generate them. And a subsequent investigation proved this to be the case.
Marcos’s camp noted that Co was speaking from hiding while facing his own arrest warrant, and challenged him to come home and make his claims under oath.
Where it stands now
After Co’s April 16, 2026, arrest in Prague, opposition lawmakers, notably the progressive Makabayan bloc, attempted to frame his repatriation as a chance to finally test these claims under oath — but, as it turned out, Co was never repatriated (see sidebar).
Today, Co’s accusations against the president remain unverified allegations made by a fugitive from justice in exile. No charges have been filed against Marcos, and Co himself hasn’t testified about them under oath.
Two related cases move at a crawl
Contractor Cezarah “Sarah” Discaya of St. Timothy Construction, company president Maria Roma Rimando, and eight DPWH Davao Occidental officials were charged in December with graft and malversation over a ₱96.5-million sea wall that was paid in full but never built.
Malversation is misappropriation or allowing the misappropriation of public funds or property by a public officer entrusted with them.
The Supreme Court threw out her bid to quash the charges in April. She was granted bail by a regional trial court in early July.
Former senator Bong Revilla was implicated by whistleblower Henry Alcantara over an alleged ₱92.8-million ghost project in Pandi, Bulacan; he surrendered in January, refused to enter a plea in February, and the court entered not-guilty pleas for him on both charges. He’s still fighting for bail.
The big fish
Only this spring did prosecutors go after the names at the top, and only with travel bans, not trials. The Sandiganbayan issued a hold-departure order against Senator Jinggoy Estrada on April 16, one against former House Speaker Martin Romualdez on April 22 over alleged plunder, bribery, graft and money laundering, and ones against Senate President Francis Escudero and businessman Maynard Ngu on April 27 — all while the Ombudsman’s preliminary investigations were still pending. The case against Romualdez is “very close” to filing, according to Ombudsman Boying Remulla.
However, to date there have been no arrangements or full trials, according to published reports.
The Ombudsman has called Romualdez the mastermind behind a kickback scheme worth roughly ₱56 billion. A formal plunder warrant for Estrada wasn’t issued until June 1, the day he surrendered. As of this writing, no sitting or former legislative leader has been arraigned.
Money recovered.
Whistleblower Henry Alcantara voluntarily returned ₱110 million in November, and Co’s seized assets cover roughly ₱215 million in potential civil liability. The Anti-Money Laundering Council has frozen over 1,600 bank accounts plus vehicles, aircraft, insurance policies and e-wallets linked to the case — real money, but a mere sliver of the tens of billions investigators say vanished.
Overall grade
Incomplete. Prosecutors pass on paperwork — engineers, bids-and-awards chairs, and one contractor couple are in jail or on trial, and the system landed its first conviction within eight months. They fail, so far, on power: analysts noted as early as last November that arrests had stayed narrowly focused on DPWH regional staff while the lawmakers and contractors accused of driving the scheme remained untouched, and seven months later that’s still mostly true. A recent retrospective in the online newspaper Daily Tribune marking 300 days since the scandal broke found courtroom motions had quietly replaced last year’s street protests, with public attention fading even as the cases grind on.
The paper trail says accountability is coming. The clock says: not yet.
The wheels of justice grind slowly, but grind exceedingly fine
In fairness, it should be noted that justice moves slowly in the Philippines. Court proceedings are still ongoing. High-profile defendants — senators, officials, contractors — have entered not-guilty pleas, posted bail in some cases, or are detained pending trial.
Philippine corruption cases, especially involving high officials, often take years to resolve in the Sandiganbayan.
Bryce McIntyre, PhD, resides in San Andres. He holds a doctoral degree from Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA.
Claude AI was employed in research for this article.