November 20, 2025
MANILA – There’s “no compelling reason” yet to initiate an impeachment complaint against President Marcos Jr. based only on resigned Ako Bicol Rep. Elizaldy Co’s allegations — made on social media and not under oath — of graft-ridden insertions in the 2025 budget, two House minority lawmakers said on Wednesday.
During a press conference, Akbayan Rep. Perci Cendana and Kamanggagawa Rep. Eli San Fernando said that while they take seriously Co’s allegations against Mr. Marcos and his cousin, former Speaker Martin Romualdez, it would be difficult to pursue impeachment proceedings against the President based only on Co’s three-part video uploaded on social media over the weekend.
In the video, Co accused Marcos and Romualdez of getting P56 billion in kickbacks from P100 billion worth of insertions in the 2025 General Appropriations Act. These alleged insertions, Co said, were done at the bicameral conference committee level and facilitated by Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman and Presidential Legislative Liaison Office Undersecretary Adrian Bersamin.
READ: Marcos got P25B from 2025 budget insertions — Zaldy Co
“The problem is that everything he said has no legal weight, it’s just on social media,” San Fernando said. “That’s why we’re telling the former representative to come home, and if he was truly serious about his allegations, then submit them under oath.”
Both made it clear, however, that Marcos cannot simply shrug off these allegations especially since several high-ranking Malacañang and Cabinet officials were being implicated.
All investigations into anomalous government projects, they added, must extend to all levels of government even if it reaches Malacanang.
For now, however, Cendana — who endorsed the first of three impeachment complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte last year over her alleged misuse of confidential funds — believed there was “no compelling reason yet” to pursue impeachment proceedings against the President as any complaint “must be founded on facts and evidence.”
He noted, for example, that their complaint against Duterte last December 2024 was based on “very strong and serious evidence.”
He was referring to the findings of the House committee on good government in the 19th Congress, which found a pattern of irregularities in how she used her confidential funds during her concurrent tenures as Vice President and Education Secretary from 2022 to 2024.
This included the use of possible ghost beneficiaries like “Mary Grace Piattos” and over a thousand over recipients who signed acknowledgment receipts for the disbursement of confidential funds.
“We will follow where the evidence is. But until then, there remains no compelling reason, because we think any impeachment complaint must be founded on facts and evidence,” Cendana said.
Moreover, any impeachment proceedings might not prosper anyway “because it’s a very political process here in the House of Representatives,” San Fernando said, alluding to the strong support that the President still gets from lawmakers.
“In any case, I don’t think a change in leadership is what the public wants, what they want is accountability, what they want are charges filed, laws that would be useful for them,” he added.