Marcos says Romualdez, allies won't be spared in ICI probe

President Ferdinand ''Bongbong'' Marcos Jr. assured the public Monday that his allies, including Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, would not be spared in the probe of the Independent Commission for Infrastructure into anomalous and ghost flood control projects.

During a press conference, Marcos was asked how will he convince the public that his cousin and other allies in the House of Representatives and the Senate, such as Ako Bicol party-list Representative Zaldy Co, would not be spared from the scrutiny of the ICI. 

''Well, there’s only one way to do it, they will not [be] spared. No body—anybody will see ‘ah hindi wala, wala tayong kinikilingan, wala tayong tinutulungan, wala naman maniniwala sa iyo hangga't gawin mo eh, so gagawin namin. Alright,'' Marcos said. 

(We will not side with anyone, we will not help anyone. No one will believe you unless you do it, so that's what we will do.)

The President also maintained that the ICI would be completely independent.

''What I want to stress here is that the independent nature of this commission. Hindi kami makikialam sa trabaho nila (We will not intervene with their work). We will, of course, be in discussion with them. We will ask them ano na nangyari, what have you found, what are we doing next etcetera. But we were not about to direct them as to how they were going to conduct their investigations and we are going to leave it up to them,'' Marcos said. 

''As a matter of fact, in our discussions with them, they also said may we make suggestions, may we make proposals so as to the procedure, for bidding, for all these contracts para hindi na maulit ito. And, of course, I said we’re perfectly open to that. What we really want is to fix the system,'' he added. 

Romualdez and Co were among those named by controversial contractor Curlee Discaya who were allegedly involved in corrupt practices in the flood control project.

A day after, Discaya clarified that he did not have any personal transactions with the Romualdez and Co.

Both Romualdez and Co already denied the accusations made against them.

Romualdez said the claim that his name was supposedly used for commissions was false, malicious, and nothing more than name-dropping.

Co, former chairman of the powerful House appropriations committee, branded as "baseless and irresponsible" all the accusations leveled against him during the Senate hearing, saying these were "politically motivated" and meant to "mislead the public and deflect accountability."

Co was an incorporator of Sunwest Inc., the fifth leading flood control project contractor in the Bicol Region, before reportedly divesting from the firm.—AOL, GMA Integrated News