Vice President Sara Duterte accused President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of trying to rewrite the narrative surrounding the government’s multibillion-peso flood control controversy.

Speaking to reporters in The Hague, Duterte dismissed Marcos’ anti-corruption message as political theater, saying his now-famous “Mahiya naman kayo” (“Have some shame”) line was intended to deflect blame rather than establish accountability.

“He hasn’t sent anyone to jail over the flood control scandal. It was a PR stunt. They inserted that line into his speech, and it backfired,” Duterte said in Filipino.

Marcos first used the phrase during his 2025 State of the Nation Address, when he publicly rebuked officials and contractors over alleged irregularities in what’s now known as “Floodgate.”

In his fifth SoNA on Monday, the President said his administration had filed criminal cases, frozen or recovered billions of pesos in assets linked to the alleged scheme, and pursued investigations that previous administrations had failed to undertake.

Duterte argued that Marcos could not portray himself as an outsider to the controversy because he signed the General Appropriations Act, which authorized the spending.

“So now he’s saying that as if I were the one who said, ‘Have some shame,’ just to distance himself from the flood control scandal. Unfortunately, he cannot distance himself from the corruption in the flood control scandal because he signed the budget,” she said.

NEP vs GAA

She reiterated her long-standing argument that the alleged anomalies could be traced by comparing the National Expenditure Program (NEP) — the executive’s proposed budget submitted to Congress — with the final General Appropriations Act (GAA) enacted into law, which she claimed contained flood control projects inserted during the legislative process.

“You signed a budget knowing it contained many insertions. You knew that the NEP you submitted was no longer the same as the GAA that came out,” Duterte said.

She argued that even if Congress introduced amendments, the President still had the constitutional authority to veto questionable appropriations before signing the budget into law, making him politically accountable for projects she described as irregular.

Duterte also disputed Marcos’ claim that his anti-corruption campaign had produced tangible results.

“Because no one has been jailed. No one who received suitcases of money from the flood control scandal has been sent to prison,” she said.

Malacañang has maintained that the alleged irregularities largely stemmed from congressional amendments to the executive’s proposed budget.