The Marcos administration’s handling of the case of fugitive former Ako Bicol Partylist Representative Zaldy Co has become a study in embarrassment and evasion.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had prematurely declared that Co had been “nahuli” --- caught or arrested — in the Czech Republic, only for the reality to surface that Co had been briefly detained over invalid travel documents, not pursuant to an arrest warrant or an International Criminal Police (Interpol) red notice, and was soon released.

He has since reportedly sought asylum in France. Rather than accept failure, Malacañang doubled down, insisting the President was correct. Then in a bid to salvage the narrative Marcos summoned the envoys of the two countries concerned to the Palace.

This was part of a larger pattern of misdirection. Co stands accused in a major corruption scandal involving billions in anomalous flood control projects. The scheme allegedly funneled public funds into private pockets while communities remained vulnerable to devastating floods.

Co pointed fingers at higher levels of power in a series of social media videos, suggesting he was not the apex but part of a wider network.

By obsessing over one fugitive’s movements, the Palace scripts a drama that shields the masterminds.

Summoning the French ambassador and the Czech chargé d’affaires to Malacañang and publicizing the meeting invited their predictable silence. The diplomatic misstep compounded the damage.

Ambassadors operate under the rules of the Vienna Convention. They are not obliged to furnish sensitive details on demand, especially when the requesting government does not have an airtight case for extradition.

The Czech side confirmed only an immigration-related stop, not its cooperation with cases filed in the Philippines. The result was a public snub, amplifying perceptions of Marcos’s diminished credibility abroad.

Critics noted the contrast between presidential bravado and its outcomes. The Philippines slid to 120th out of 182 countries in Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, with a score of 32, its lowest under the current methodology. This reflected the public exasperation with scandals that eroded trust in governance.

Harping repeatedly on accountability, but following it up with procedural lapses and managed narratives turns exasperation into outrage.

It was widely known that Co’s Philippine documents were revoked only after he had secured a Portuguese passport, which he now uses to freely travel within the European Union.

If the goal is genuine justice for flood victims, authorities should strengthen the legal basis for extradition by securing proper notices, evidence packages, and inter-agency coordination, rather than mounting high-profile missions and issuing summonses that provoke diplomatic friction and domestic skepticism.

Co is being treated as the biggest fish, while broader questions about him receiving orders from an overlord linger.

Effective leadership is lost without transparency on what went wrong with the international cooperation.

A credible broadening of the flood control probe, for which Marcos and his men said the investigations would proceed wherever the evidence led, has been forgotten.

The continued deflection only fuels the suspicion that the real coverup is not of one man’s flight, but of the networks that enabled the grand corruption in the first place.

The exchange between Marcos and the envoys was an embarrassment more than a show of resolve.

Accountability begins with candor about a failure, not with insisting that a word like “nahuli” can be bent.

Trust in Marcos and his cohorts remains as elusive as the fugitive the Palace cannot deliver.