💣 P100 BILLION GHOST MONEY! SENATOR SLAMS ‘PUZZLING’ BUDGET BOMBSHELL AS MARCOS ACCUSATION SHATTERS LOGIC! 🚨
A chilling fog of suspicion has descended upon the Philippine political landscape, triggered by a sensational, logic-defying allegation that rips the veneer off the 2025 national budget. Resigned Ako Bicol party-list Representative Zaldy Co—himself embroiled in a massive infrastructure scandal—has dropped a P100-billion bombshell, accusing President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of making a gargantuan, last-minute “insertion” into the General Appropriations Act (GAA). The sheer scale of the alleged insertion is staggering, but it is the timing and nature of the funds that has left Senate Finance Committee Chairman, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, utterly bewildered and deeply suspicious.
The Palace has swiftly dismissed Co’s claim as “pure hearsay,” yet the damage is done. Co’s revelation—a desperate move by a man facing accusations of orchestrating a P35-billion budget insertion scheme from 2022 to 2025—has opened the floodgates to a national investigation into the sanctity of the budget process and the potential abuse of executive power.
But Senator Gatchalian, a veteran of countless budget deliberations, argues that Co’s story simply does not compute. The allegation, designed to shock and implicate, seems to violate the fundamental laws of political gravity and budgetary practice. This is not just a budget insertion; it’s a Puzzling Paradox written in black ink, raising the terrifying question: Is Zaldy Co lying, or is the budget process even more compromised than we dare to imagine?
THE LOGIC THAT DOESN’T ADD UP: INSERTIONS AT THE FINISH LINE
Senator Gatchalian’s critique zeroes in on the bizarre placement of the alleged P100-billion expenditure.
“It’s puzzling,” Gatchalian stated emphatically. “The National Expenditure Program is the President’s budget. If the President wants to include something, he normally puts it at the beginning, not at the end.”
The standard, established practice dictates that the President’s priority programs—the cornerstones of his administration’s agenda—are laid out right at the very front. They are the non-negotiables, the items championed publicly. According to Gatchalian, inserting a colossal sum like P100 billion at the tail end of the legislative process—when the budget is already being finalized—is unprecedented and chaotic.
Such a massive, last-minute amendment would effectively “mess up” the entire budget structure. It is the political equivalent of adding a hundred extra floors to a skyscraper just as the roof is being tiled. The logic is flawed, the timing is nonsensical, and the senator’s deep-seated confusion signals a profound disconnect between Co’s claim and political reality.
THE VETO AND THE VAGRANT PROJECTS: A TRAIL OF CONTRADICTIONS
The anomalies continue as Gatchalian delved into the specifics of the alleged insertions. The Senator, upon reviewing the list of projects mentioned by Co, discovered projects earmarked for his own hometown of Valenzuela.
“I saw that there were projects listed for Valenzuela,” he revealed. “And I wondered, why would the President include very small projects scattered across different areas? Like here in Valenzuela, we saw that the projects included were secondary roads—not highways or major roads—so it’s really surprising.”
Why would a President commit P100 billion to dozens of tiny, low-impact road projects scattered across the country? Presidential priority typically focuses on transformative, high-visibility infrastructure. This patchwork of minor, almost anonymous projects suggests a motive more aligned with pork barrel politics than executive strategy.
But the most damning contradiction is the issue of the vetoed items. Gatchalian pointed out that Co’s list of “inserted” projects bizarrely included items that President Marcos Jr. himself had vetoed in the 2025 budget.
“It’s confusing: if he supposedly inserted them, why would he veto his own insertions?” Gatchalian questioned, laying bare the central paradox. “So Mr. Zaldy Co’s statement raises many questions because a lot of it doesn’t match the normal process, and the logic behind it just doesn’t add up.”
Co’s accusation, ostensibly aimed at exposing presidential corruption, has instead exposed itself as a tangled web of inconsistencies. It is a conspiracy theory that actively undermines its own premise with verifiable budget facts.
THE DARK SYMMETRY: ACCUSER BECOMES THE ACCUSED
The dramatic tension in this exposé is heightened by the dark, compelling symmetry between the accuser and the accused. Zaldy Co’s sudden, sensational allegation comes at a time when he is fighting for his own political survival. He has been named by former government engineers as the mastermind behind an alleged scheme involving budget insertions that ballooned flood control projects in Bulacan to at least P35 billion.
A man facing charges of orchestrating a multi-billion-peso budget scam is now accusing the country’s highest official of an even bigger one.
Is Co’s bombshell a genuine act of whistleblowing, a desperate attempt to show that corruption runs to the very top? Or is it a calculated, pre-emptive strike—a classic distraction technique designed to muddy the waters, create a bigger, more unbelievable scandal, and deflect scrutiny from his own alleged crimes?
Senator Gatchalian’s professional skepticism strongly leans toward the latter, but the simple fact remains: whether true or false, Co’s claims have successfully sown doubt, shattered trust, and forced a national conversation about the unseen, unaccounted-for billions that flow through the Philippine government’s veins.
The P100-billion ghost money—whether real or fabricated—is the new haunting specter of Philippine politics. It has exposed a vulnerability in the budgeting process, ignited a credibility war between an embattled politician and the President, and left the public wondering if the financial decisions that shape the nation are based on logic, transparency, or simply the whims of those with enough power to make a nine-figure sum vanish into thin air.
