Toby: Zaldy Co pushed P13.8 billion budget insertions

MANILA, Philippines — Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco appeared yesterday before the Senate Blue Ribbon committee to dispute allegations that he had inserted flood-control projects into the national budget and to turn the tables on his colleagues in the House of Representatives.

Tiangco’s appearance was allowed by Blue Ribbon chair Sen. Rodante Marcoleta, a long-time congressman, to present findings his House colleagues were “not allowing” him to present in their own chamber.

As part of inter-parliamentary courtesy, Tiangco was not made to take oath and was allowed to question fellow resource persons.

“First of all, I cannot make insertions because I’m not a member of the bicam,” Tiangco told the panel, denying claims that he was behind a P529-million flood-control project insertion.

He said it was then-appropriations chair Zaldy Co who was the proponent of some P13.8 billion worth of insertions in the 2025 budget, nearly all linked to flood-control projects.

Tiangco said some lawmakers denied ownership of these allocations, raising suspicions about how the projects ended up in the budget.

He explained that such projects were often disguised through practices known as “parking” and “sagasa.”

“Parking means you request and get the permission of district congressman. ‘Sagasa’ is when you push ahead regardless of whether the district lawmaker likes it or not,” he said.

In “sagasa,” an insertion is railroaded into a district budget regardless of the incumbent’s approval.

Oriental Mindoro Gov. Humerlito Dolor, also testifying, detailed how his province’s flood-control allocations ballooned from P12.7 billion in the National Expenditure Program between 2022 and 2025 to P30.2 billion under the enacted General Appropriations Acts, reflecting P17.8 billion in congressional insertions. He said 135 projects were inserted during the four-year period.

Dolor described the projects as inappropriate and overpriced, citing flood-control structures he described as “parang boulevard” that failed to prevent flooding.

He said contractors were billing as much as P1 billion per kilometer, or P1 million per linear meter, later adjusted by DPWH to P700 million. “Overpriced na, substandard pa po. Ito po ang problema,” he said, adding that some contractors worked at night “para maitago sa tao.”

The governor further recalled that a former DPWH regional director told him contractors had to allot 25 percent “sa taas,” five percent “parking fee” and another 12 percent for others – a total of 42 percent of project cost lost to corruption.

Dolor said had the government followed Oriental Mindoro’s P12-billion flood-mitigation master plan, endorsed to DPWH in 2019, “more or less the problem could have been solved.”