The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee has revoked its invitation to the 18 ex-Marines to testify in the flood control probe on Thursday, the first panel hearing in nearly two months after they were suspended by its former chair, Senator Ping Lacson.
The panel, now headed by Senator Pia Cayetano following a Senate leadership revamp on 11 May, informed the ex-Marines’ lawyer, Levito Balingod, that the invitation had been rescinded, without providing details.
“Please be informed that upon the directive of the chairperson Senator Pia S. Cayetano, the said invitations are hereby withdrawn,” read the email shared by Balingod in a Facebook post on Tuesday.
The 18 former Marines had claimed that they delivered luggage stuffed with massive sums of cash to the residences of top government officials. They were supposed to submit their affidavits to the committee by Wednesday.
Balingod said he received the invitation on Monday but it was revoked later that day.
He suspected the cancellation had something to do with the ongoing leadership fracas in the Senate.
On the same day the invite was canceled, Senator Jinggoy Estrada was arrested at the Senate on a non-bailable plunder charge linked to a kickback scheme in flood control projects.
“Estrada [was arrested] yesterday, then Villanueva, Escudero, and Marcoleta will follow. It is now clear who does not want to investigate the trillions of pesos stolen from the public coffers,” Balingod said. “They are afraid of what Adrian Bersamin, Amenah Pangandaman, B18, and others will tell [the committee].”
In a separate post, Balingod said he was informed that the Blue Ribbon Committee will proceed with the investigation on Thursday despite the revocation of their invitation.
The former Marines were the supposed “bagmen” of fugitive former lawmaker Elizaldy Co.
In an affidavit in February, they detailed the delivery of P805 billion from 2022 to 2025 to senior government officials, allegedly including President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
The affidavit included photos of the luggage supposedly delivered.
Earlier, Co alleged that the administration had pressured him to insert ₱100 billion worth of flood control projects into the 2025 national budget in his capacity as chairperson of the House Committee on Appropriations in the 19th Congress.
He is now facing an arrest warrant from the Sandiganbayan, but has yet to be captured by authorities abroad where he is in hiding.
Ex-Marines’ credibility questioned
Lacson had cast doubt on the credibility of the former Marines, citing logistical and mathematical implausibilities and noting that most of them had been dishonorably discharged or had gone AWOL.
Lacson argued that the enormous volume of cash they supposedly delivered would have required logistical coordination and would have taken a very long time, far longer than the period during which the supposed deliveries were made.
Besides, he said, Balingod had made “no effort” to reach out to the BRC to voluntarily present themselves as resource persons in subsequent hearings.
The former chair also took into account the position of his colleagues, who supposedly opposed summoning the ex-Marines, citing concerns their presence would “disrupt the hearings.”
