Catalina Cabral died under mysterious circumstances on Dec. 18 and Rossana Fajardo has quit the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) effective today, Dec. 30. Where are we at in the inquiry into the corruption scandal involving the institutionalized looting of public coffers?
Christmas has come and gone and the new year approaches on winged feet, but why are small fry peopling the prison cells supposedly intended for big fish? The President’s promise of powerful perps behind bars “bago mag-Pasko” has taken the proportions of an unexploded firecracker, a whistle bomb gone pfft. Surely he didn’t mean only the jailed billionaire contractor Sarah Discaya, whose family fortunes soared when, as she admitted in that startling “lifestyle interview,” she and her husband linked up with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
So the national budget for 2026 commandeered the time and efforts of the legislature, which had seen fit to let the public in on the workings of the notorious bicameral conference committee. Was the concession of live-streaming the proceedings of the bicam—once described by former finance undersecretary Milwida Guevara as “where vested interests not only lurk but also come to fruition”—a big deal? As noted by civic groups including the People’s Budget Coalition, as well as the Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives, the ₱6.793-trillion budget for next year is still bristling with “allocables” (the peculiar term that now defines the pillage of taxpayer money) as well as “secret funds,” “soft pork,” and increased funding for assistance programs set with an eye on the 2028 elections.
The measure was ratified yesterday through viva voce voting by the two chambers of Congress.
That process done and awaiting the prez’s action, Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson’s blue ribbon committee may perhaps refocus on the scheme that has pushed such types as ex-district engineers to surrender luxury vehicles and purloined sums in the hundreds of millions of pesos, and even a private contractor to employ armored trucks in returning ₱20 million (as shown in TV footage). But Congress is on a break until late in January.
Cabral files
And the death of Cabral, the former public works undersecretary so crucial in the unraveling of how the looting was pulled off, by whom, and who benefited, complicates things significantly. She was summoned by the ICI to a session last Dec. 15—three days before she was pronounced dead from a fall off Kennon Road in Tuba, Benguet—but she steered clear. Her no-show was yet another testament to the ICI’s powerlessness, a specific flaw that Rogelio Singson cited when he made his own exit last November.
Who knew that Cabral’s nonappearance at the ICI would be permanent? Who knew that her possible testimony on how, as Roberto Bernardo, her colleague at the DPWH, put it at a hearing of the Senate blue ribbon committee, she set the yearly budget ceiling of the department’s “allocable” in the National Expenditure Program, or even that ₱51 billion worth of infra projects were received by Davao City’s first district represented by Paolo Duterte during his dad’s last three years as president—who knew that such testimony would be lost forever?
Now Batangas Rep. Leandro Leviste feels entitled to engage in striptease in disclosing the contents of files purportedly given to him by Cabral herself. The noob lawmaker had made sweeping accusations of lawmakers’ “insertions” in the 2025 infra budget, and named Bicol Saro Rep. Terry Ridon, who earlier called for his public release of the files. Ridon was not a congressman in 2025.
Leviste went so far as to call for Ridon’s ouster as chair of the House committee on public accounts to make way, he said, for a proper probe—an intriguing posture, decidedly rash, which Ridon has ably parried.
It’s yet unclear how Leviste, a son of the seasoned politician Sen. Loren Legarda, means to position himself in the resolution of this corruption scandal unprecedented in shamelessness. He has posted documents on the 2025 budgets of district engineering offices nationwide, with certain discrepancies. He has accused Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon of making insertions in certain infra projects. Dizon denied this.
He now says he has turned over the complete Cabral files to the Office of the Ombudsman, and presents a photo of its smiling staff apparently to back his claim. But Assistant Ombudsman Mico Clavano insists that he has submitted only a “limited” copy.
In this seeming theater of the absurd, the public is called upon to be attentive to statements and contexts.
The Palace now says the manner by which the files came into Leviste’s possession should be investigated. Dizon says he has not seen or authenticated Leviste’s documents. It now appears that Lacson and other parties are also holding copies of the Cabral files.
Lacson, whose blue ribbon committee has uncovered many critical details in the corruption scandal, said in a radio interview on Saturday that at least five Cabinet secretaries, including Manuel Bonoan (Dizon’s predecessor and Cabral’s boss) and one listed as “ES,” had “allocables” amounting to billions of pesos in the 2025 budget. Feeling alluded to, Lucas Bersamin expressed outrage.
The ICI had recommended Bonoan, along with Bernardo and Cabral, for investigation in connection with a ₱95.04-million flood control project and a ₱72.4-million riverbank project, both nonexistent, in Bulacan. But, with the ICI bereft of the power to issue hold-departure orders, Bonoan flew the coop for the United States in November and has not been heard from since. (Ex-Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co, former chair of the House appropriations committee and at large in the world, has likewise been silent lately.)
Only 2 left
With the resignation of the veteran accountant Fajardo, the ICI is left with only its chair Andres Reyes and its special adviser Rodolfo Azurin Jr. to carry on. There’s no news of Malacañang urgently seeking candidates to take Fajardo’s place (or Singson’s); it said she had “already accomplished her tasks based on her mandate.” It also said the commission’s work “continues in coordination with other investigating bodies,” but the general tone makes it seem as though the dissolution of the ICI created by executive order in September were imminent.
Indeed, Fajardo said, correctly, that the Independent People’s Commission and Independent Commission Against Infrastructure Corruption proposed in Congress would be “more effective” in assisting the Ombudsman in going after those involved in the corruption scandal.
And here we are on the cusp of 2026—robbed and therefore poorer, awaiting results from official investigations and trying mightily not to lose hope, on top of dodging paputok that have killed and maimed children in the streets…
The new year should strengthen everyone’s resolve to exact full accountability for the plunder of public resources now and in the past, and not to forget those who continue to evade it.
