Justice Doesn’t End With Jinggoy: The Big Fish Still Swims

The Sandiganbayan issued an arrest warrant against Senator Jinggoy Estrada for plunder over his alleged involvement in the flood control scandal, where he is accused of pocketing over ₱573 million in kickbacks. He surrendered to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group at Camp Crame the same day.

The convenient accused

Jinggoy is an easy name to put on the front page. It is the third time in 25 years that plunder charges have been filed against him. If the evidence holds, he should be charged, tried, and if found guilty, punished.

But that is exactly why the public should be alert. Estrada is not only a possible suspect. He is also conveniently accused. Familiar enough to satisfy public anger, damaged enough to be believable, and high-profile enough to make the government appear serious.

Scale of the scandal

The flood control scandal is not a single transaction. It is a decade of systematic looting of public infrastructure funds. Roughly more than ₱79 billion was lost to over 600 ghost flood control projects, and that figure covers only the nonexistent ones, not yet counting substandard or incomplete works that were also fully paid. 

Investigators described the method as an intricate mechanism. Illegal budget insertions, kickbacks baked into project allocations, and funds passed through projects that were defective, overpriced, or never built. That kind of scandal cannot be resolved by charging one senator, right?

Zaldy Co is a thread, not the story

Central to the investigation is former Ako Bicol representative Zaldy Co, the former chair of the House appropriations committee. For months, he was the face of public fury. Filipinos marched in the streets with his name on placards. But the money trail widened, and a harder question began to surface. Is Co just the most visible hand in a machine controlled by someone else entirely?

In November 2025, just days after releasing videos accusing President Marcos and former Speaker Romualdez of orchestrating budget insertions, Co became one of the first individuals charged by the Sandiganbayan with graft and malversation in connection with the flood control scandal. In those videos, Co admitted to inserting ₱100 billion into the 2025 national budget, claiming the directive came explicitly from President Marcos and Romualdez.

Co is not a credible witness by default. He faces his own charges. His statements may be incomplete, selective, or self-serving. The Palace branded his allegations “wild accusations, completely without basis.”

But the correct response to a self-serving witness is not dismissal. It is verification. And what Co’s testimony does, regardless of his motives, is point a finger directly at the man who ran the House of Representatives.

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A name the investigation has been circling

Former House Speaker Martin Romualdez is not a peripheral figure in this scandal. He is, according to the Office of the Ombudsman, its purported architect.

The Ombudsman alleges that he is the mastermind behind this kickback scandal. In April 2026, the Sandiganbayan approved the Ombudsman’s request for a precautionary hold-departure order barring Romualdez from leaving the country. 

A 576-page report signed by six of nine Senate minority members found him liable for either being complicit in the anomalous flood control scandal or negligent in his job as head of the lower chamber, concluding that he cannot simply absolve himself of accountability.

Romualdez is not an independent operator running a rogue scheme inside the legislature. He is the President’s first cousin. 

Beware the spectacle

The Estrada filing is the fourth batch of flood control-related cases to reach the courts. Following charges against Co in November, contractor Sarah Discaya and DPWH officials in December, and former senator Bong Revilla in January 2026. Each filing has generated headlines. Each has allowed the government to point to action.

The country has seen this pattern before. A scandal explodes. Names are offered. Cases are filed against the most recognizable faces. Then the larger network disappears behind procedure, denial, delay, and fatigue.