The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee has revoked its invitation to the so-called 18 Marines to testify in the flood control probe on Thursday, the first panel hearing in nearly two months after being suspended by its former chair, Senator Ping Lacson.
The panel, now headed by Senator Pia Cayetano following a leadership revamp on 11 May, informed lawyer Levito Balingod that the invitation had been rescinded, with no details given.
“Please be informed that upon the directive of the chairperson Senator Pia S. Cayetano, the said invitations are hereby withdrawn,” read the email shared by Balingod in a Facebook post on Tuesday.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 previously claimed that they delivered luggage stuffed with massive sums of illicit cash to the residences of top government officials. They were supposed to submit their affidavits to the committee by Wednesday.
Balingod, counsel for the Marine personnel, said he received the invitation on Monday, but it was also revoked later that day.
He suspected that the cancellation was related to the ongoing leadership fracas in the Senate, accusing the administration and minority senators of politically persecuting members of the majority bloc to pressure their peers facing possible arrest into switching sides and toppling Senate President Alan Cayetano.
On the same day the invite was canceled, Senator Jinggoy Estrada was arrested at the Senate on a non-bailable plunder case linked to the 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 stressed. “They are afraid of what Adrian Bersamin, Amenah Pangandaman, B18, and others will tell [to the committee].”
In a separate post, Balingod said he was informed that the BRC will proceed with the investigation on Thursday despite the revocation of their invitation.
The Marines are the so-called “bagmen” of fugitive former lawmaker Elizaldy Co. They detailed in an affidavit in February that they delivered P805 billion in kickbacks from 2022 to 2025 to senior officials, including no less than President Marcos Jr., on Co’s orders.
The affidavit includes photos of alleged deliveries.
Earlier, Co alleged that the administration had made him insert P100 billion worth of projects into the 2025 budget in his capacity as chairperson of the House committee on appropriations in the 19th Congress.
He is now facing a warrant from the Sandiganbayan, but has yet to be captured by authorities abroad.
Lacson had cast doubt on the credibility of the alleged Marines, citing logistical and mathematical implausibilities and noting that most of them were dishonorably discharged or AWOL.
Lacson argued that the enormous volume of cash would have required logistical coordination and would be time-consuming, far longer than the period during which the supposed deliveries occurred.
Besides, he averred that Balingod had made “no effort” to reach out to BRC to present themselves as resource persons in subsequent hearings voluntarily.
The former chair also considered the position of his colleagues, who allegedly opposed summoning the Marines, citing concerns that they would just “disrupt the hearing.”