When the Most Powerful Man in the Philippines Reportedly Became a Bicam Tambay Asking for ‘Pang-Proyekto Lang Po’

Absolute Power, Zero Logic: The Day the NEP Was Ignored and the Begging Bowl Came Out

By Louis ‘Barok‘ C. Biraogo — November 17, 2025

Let’s all have a good, bitter laugh.

The President of the Republic — the man who has absolute control over the National Expenditure Program (NEP), who has a Budget Secretary on speed dial, who treats the entire Department of Budget and Management (DBM) like his personal ATM — suddenly morphs into a street beggar at the bicameral conference committee (bicam), palms open, asking for loose change. “₱100 billion lang po, kuya congressman, ate senator. Pang-kape lang po.”

That is the official fairy tale according to former Ako Bicol Rep. Elizaldy “Zaldy” Co. And the one question every serious budget veteran — from Butch Abad to Cielo Magno to Toby Tiangco — keeps asking with a straight face is this: If you are the President and you can slide ₱100 billion into the NEP while it’s still being typed inside Malacañang, why would you humiliate yourself begging for it in the bicam?

1. WHY BEG AT THE BICAM WHEN YOU OWN THE WHOLE BUDGET KINGDOM?

In the entire history of Philippine budgeting, the NEP is the President’s private playground. That’s where you bury pet projects, confidential funds, and midnight infrastructure fantasies. Yet Zaldy Co emerges from exile and declares: “No, the President waited until the smoky bicam backroom and personally handed me the wish list.” Cielo Magno, former Finance Under-Secretary, put it best on social media:

“Why would BBM be so dumb as to wait for the bicam to insert ₱100B when he can just shove it into the NEP?” (BNC Facebook)

Dumb. That’s the word the Palace can’t scrub off.

**He owns the vault, but prefers the sidewalk—because nothing tastes sweeter than begged billions.**

2. ZALDY CO: HEROIC WHISTLEBLOWER OR FLOOD-CONTRACT CARTEL PRINCE IN EXILE?

Let’s be brutal. Zaldy Co is not Snow White. His family firms — Sunwest Inc. and Hi-Tone Construction — sit at the heart of the collapsed flood-control wall scandals in Oriental Mindoro and Bicol. His allied contractors appear on the same “Top 15 cartel” list that President Marcos himself denounced in August 2024. Then — poof — he flees abroad, drops a dramatic YouTube video, and crowns himself the victim. Convenient that his own companies’ projects are mysteriously missing from the list he published. Convenient that he only speaks when the Ombudsman is circling. Convenient courage, activated only with strong Wi-Fi and zero extradition treaty.

3. THE MYTH OF THE “GUARANTEED 25% KICKBACK” — OR THE DUMBEST HEIST IN HISTORY

The gutter explanation: “They used bicam because it guarantees the 25% SOP (standard operating procedure)!” In Philippine pork-barrel folklore, that almost sounds clever. Bicam is dark, rushed, chaotic — perfect for slipping overpriced projects to pre-selected contractors who reliably kick back the “standard” cut. Now watch me destroy that theory with ice-cold logic. If you are the President and you truly want a quiet, reliable 25% rake-off, why route it through a room full of senators, congressmen, staffers, and egos — any one of whom can record, leak, or flip tomorrow? In the NEP you only need yourself and DBM. In the NEP there are no bicam minutes. In the NEP you don’t have to pray Zaldy Co stays loyal forever. So if this ₱100 billion was really about kickbacks, congratulations— you just staged the loudest, clumsiest, most self-incriminating robbery in Philippine history.

4. WHAT EVERYONE SHOULD DO (THAT NO ONE WILL)

To Zaldy Co: Come home. Testify under oath before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee. Release every document, not your curated highlight reel. Real martyrs bleed in Manila, not in air-conditioned exile.

To President Marcos: Open the vault. Release every NEP draft and DBM change log from 2024. Order an independent forensic audit by the Commission on Audit (COA). Tell the nation — live on television — who ordered those insertions, if anyone did. We all know the script: selective amnesia from Zaldy, stonewalling from Malacañang until 2028.

5. FINAL VERDICT: HEADS THEY WIN, TAILS WE LOSE

If Zaldy Co is telling the truth → we have an administration so brazenly corrupt it can’t even steal competently. If Zaldy Co is lying → we have a political class so rotten that the most absurd accusation instantly sounds credible. Either way, the Filipino people lose. That ₱100 billion — wherever it came from, whoever pocketed it — came from our taxes. And while they bicker over who stole it, we’re left with no roads, no flood control, no future. Welcome to Philippine democracy. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And we’re always the ones getting burned.

Until the next scandal drops, –Barok