By Ade S. Fajardo

The ongoing probe into flood control shenanigans has shaken the foundations of many institutions.

Case in point: Senator Tito Sotto has wrested the Senate presidency from Chiz Escudero.

In the Senate hearing, the famed Discaya couple named several lawmakers as among those who received kickbacks from infrastructure projects that they implemented for the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

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Representative Zaldy Co, touted to be the beneficial owner of contractor Sunwest Inc., was prominently mentioned for having allegedly engineered budget insertions for several flood control projects amounting to billions of pesos.

Co is associated with his fellow Bicolano Escudero, who was earlier reported as having personally seen through the bicameral proceedings that considered the 2025 national budget before it was sent to the President for his signature.

The Senate has to be saved from further damage as an institution.

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It will be difficult to prove the Discayas’ allegations against the lawmakers in a court of law. They are essentially hearsay because, as they themselves admitted, they had direct dealings only with DPWH engineers.

Whether the testimony is credible in the court of public opinion is another story altogether. The Discayas will lose credibility when it is eventually shown that they filtered their story to spare other people who may also have taken kickbacks from them.

They are best advised not to suppress material facts. The claim that no senator is involved in kickbacks has raised many eyebrows especially because it was the Senate that conducted the hearing.

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Last September 3, Philippine Contractors Accreditation Board (PCAB) Executive Director Herbert Matienzo resigned ostensively for “personal reasons.”

This was confirmed by no less than Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary Maria Cristina Roque. She also placed PCAB and the Construction Industry Association of the Philippines (CIAP) under her direct supervision.

Secretary Roque also formed a fact-finding team to investigate PCAB on charges of abuse of authority, conflict of interest, and corruption-induced contractor accreditations.

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Before Matienzo resigned, he revoked the contractor’s licenses of nine construction companies owned and controlled by Sarah Discaya.

That was classic afterthought — conceived right after Senator Panfilo Lacson exposed extortion activities in PCAB. A contractor was threatened to cough up at least P1 million or face the non-renewal of his license.

“A contractor had a problem that he sought to settle with the PCAB. It was a case of extortion because he was blackmailed into coughing up at least a million pesos. He was told his license would not be renewed if he did not pay up,” Lacson said in a radio interview.

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Not long after, Senator Erwin Tulfo disclosed that Wawao Builders, the ghost builder in Bulacan, is a mere dummy of EBG Construction Corp., said to be owned by another PCAB director.

Mark Allan Arevalo is purportedly just a messenger of newly resigned director Erni Baggao.

The people are angry. These resignations may not be allowed to render the lifestyle checks ordered by the President moot and academic./WDJ