Amid the swirl of claims and counterclaims between Senate and House leaders over the mangled 2025 national budget, the disclosures of fugitive former lawmaker Zaldy Co laid out in a letter he said he sent to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. deserve scrutiny.

Co claimed he sent the letter to Marcos in February, when the verbal tussles over insertions and blank items in the budget in the bicameral conference committee (bicam) became heated.

The letter detailed the horse trading in the bicam over the pork barrel, where former Senate president Chiz Escudero reportedly insisted on a P200-billion allocation for the Senate.

Co revealed the pork cuts in the budget, stating in the letter that there was a “tradition in budget allocation ratios” of for every one unit allocated to the Senate, the House of Representatives received two, “given its significantly larger membership.”

The tradition has supposedly prevailed despite the 2013 Supreme Court ruling that the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), or legislative pork barrel, and other similar discretionary funds in the budget were unconstitutional.

For the 2025 budget, Co complained that the “tradition” was not adhered to by Escudero, who was depicted by the former House appropriation committee head as having dominated the bicam realignments.

“It was also upon SP Chiz’s suggestion that the P74-billion subsidy for PhilHealth was scrapped,” the letter stated. Escudero has defended the deletion of the subsidy as a penalty for PhilHealth for giving away P89.9 billion in excess funds to the National Treasury to pay for unprogrammed allocations (UA) in the 2024 budget.

It was supposedly a penalty against PhilHealth, arguing that the state insurer had been “giving away” funds, failing to demonstrate fiscal prudence. He added that the withdrawal of the subsidy was intended to compel PhilHealth to institute long-overdue reforms.

Co said Escudero wanted to cut the P106-billion realigned projects under the District Engineering Offices of the Department of Public Works and Highways and the P16-billion errata in the agency, which consisted of various corrections and adjustments in the initial phase of the budget process.

The letter said Escudero threatened to delay the budget approval unless the Senate got its P200-billion share.

The slashing of P13.9 billion — or half of the P27.8 billion in infrastructure funding for the administration’s flagship projects — was also blamed on Escudero’s determination to milk the budget for his Senate peers.

Co recounted that former DPWH secretary Manuel Bonoan was informed of Escudero’s bicam moves, with Co naming the individuals who were present when the diversions were made.

Among the reallocated funds were those for the repair and rehabilitation of roads linking Batangas and Quezon province.

Moreover, Escudero was also blamed for the foreign-funded projects being shoved into the UA.

Previously, flagship programs and  Maharlika Highway-related projects were never touched, the letter indicated.

The names mentioned in the letter, curiously, were of those who resigned under uncomfortable circumstances or are now under investigation, led by ex-budget secretary Amenah Pangadaman.

In response to the allegations, the Palace’s actions spoke louder than the pronouncements of its mouthpieces.

Escudero must be made to answer Co’s allegations, which may, in turn, force into the open the darker and more devious ways this year’s budget was twisted in the shadows of bicam secrecy.