Estrada cries foul over ‘politicizing’ of bare office turnover to Sotto

Senator Jinggoy Estrada’s camp asserted Tuesday that “not a single centavo” of public funds was wasted after he completely stripped his former office before turning it over to Senator Tito Sotto, insisting that expenses for tiles, glass panels, lighting fixtures and other items came out of his own pocket.

Estrada is currently detained on plunder charges in connection with the flood control scam, but he managed to issue the statement in response to criticisms accusing him of wasting taxpayers’ money.

“Let it be stressed, in no uncertain terms, that not a single centavo of public funds was wasted. In fact, the Senate will bear no cost whatsoever for office supplies and materials, as most, if not all, of those used in the previous office will simply be reused in the new one,” his statement read, adding that the resident Commission on Audit auditor had been fully informed.

The statement followed a viral video showing Estrada’s former office on the Senate’s sixth floor stripped bare, including toilet bowls, sinks, tiles, wall panels, carpets and electrical sockets.

Sotto’s office was reportedly shocked by the room’s alleged unusable condition when his staff checked it on Monday, the turnover deadline. Estrada, however, said his chief of staff had told Sotto that fixtures, furnishings and other office materials would be brought to Estrada’s new office.

The office is designated for the Senate president pro tempore, a post Estrada held from May 2024 to September 2025 and which is now held by Sotto.

Aside from saying that he personally shouldered all expenses for the office fixtures and furnishings, Estrada argued that it is an “established” and “standard practice” in the Senate for a new occupant to shoulder renovation costs when the institution’s budget is insufficient.

“It is also worth mentioning…that the said vacated office, when it was turned over to Senator Estrada in 2022, was likewise bare, following this same long-standing practice,” the statement read.

Estrada’s camp further argued that dismantling fixtures and materials from a vacated senator’s office had occurred in the past, making scrutiny of the particular turnover “unfair and misleading.”

“We trust that this clarifies the matter and respectfully appeal that this routine administrative transition not be unnecessarily politicized, sensationalized, or made into a manufactured controversy where none exists,” it added.

Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, however, quickly disputed Estrada’s claims. He argued that the office was turned over to Estrada “intact” when Lacson vacated it in 2022 because “its refurbishment had been undertaken using government funds.”

“Nothing was removed nor destroyed, precisely because government funds were used when I refurbished it when it was turned over to me,” Lacson said on X, formerly Twitter.

Lacson briefly held the Senate’s second-highest post from September 2025 to May 2026 but said he did not occupy the dedicated office before it was turned over to Sotto.