October 6, 2025
MANILA – Despite public clamor to immediately jail all personalities involved in the flood control mess, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said he does not want a rushed and haphazard investigation, as that may backfire on his administration’s anti-corruption campaign.
For the President, mere accusations and testimonies, even in congressional hearings, would not hold up in court in the absence of proof.
“We know many of these people are not innocent. But if you’re going to bring them to court, you must have a very strong case,” Marcos said in an interview with Philip Cu-Unjieng of the Manila Bulletin and his childhood friend as part of his BBM Podcast.
A teaser of the latest episode of the podcast was released by the Presidential Communications Office on Sunday.
“Look, what would happen if we rushed the investigation? We would have incomplete and unclear evidence. But we still pursued the filing of cases. The result: We lost the cases. Can you imagine that right now?” the President said.
“I think that would be much, much, much worse,” he added.
The President created the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) to investigate all the anomalous government infrastructure works, most especially flood control projects, in the past 10 years.
The results of its inquiry would be used to recommend the filing of charges against all those involved.
Almost a month after the fact-finding body’s three members were appointed, the ICI has conducted numerous closed-door hearings and summoned different government officials and contractors involved in the flood control mess.
However, it has only publicized one interim report, which urged the Office of the Ombudsman to recommend the filing of graft charges against 18 individuals, including resigned lawmaker Elizaldy “Zaldy” Co, over the substandard flood control project in Oriental Mindoro worth P289.5 million.
READ: Zaldy Co resigns; ICI sends raps to Ombudsman for study
The public, including lawmakers, also urged the ICI to open its hearings to the public for the sake of more transparency and accountability.
READ: ICI looking for ‘solution’ to allow transparency
The ICI, however, was hesitant to accept the proposal, stressing it wanted to “avoid trial by publicity and will not allow itself to be used for any political leverage or agenda by any individual or group.”
READ: For transparency: Past, present solons seek ICI probe live streaming
In a previous episode of his podcast, the President said he was committed to going after the “big fish” behind the corruption-tainted flood control projects once the ICI investigation concludes.
For him, the rotten system could be fixed only by jailing the contractors and government officials involved in numerous irregularities surrounding publicly funded infrastructure projects over the years.
“We have to follow the law. Otherwise, whatever we do is not legitimate. And we have to be very, very clear that we go after the guilty ones,” Marcos said.