Tiangco: Romualdez referred my additional budget request to Zaldy Co

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Navotas Representative Tobias Tiangco on Tuesday told the Sandiganbayan he approached Leyte Representative Martin Romualdez for additional funding for his district during Romualdez’s tenure as Speaker.

Tiangco made the testimony during Romualdez's bail hearing at the Sandiganbayan Third Division, where the latter is facing a P7.4-billion plunder charge leveled against him and three others over their alleged links to the flood control mess.

Tiangco said Romualdez referred him to then-Ako Bicol party-list congressman Zaldy Co, who at the time was chair of the House appropriations committee.

Tiangco, however, said he did not reach out to Co. He said he learned from then-Pampanga congressman Aurelio "Dong" Gonzales Jr. that Co would ask for a 20% "taripa" or kickback, and that the kickback could even be lowered to 10% as “presyong kamag-anak” or friends and family rate.

Tiangco said he did not report the incident to Romualdez, but that the then-Speaker eventually called him in to discuss the issue.

“He [Romualdez] called me to meeting. Sabi ko, alam mo Speaker never ako lumapit sa iyo, pero since nagtatanong [ka] eto ang nangyari sa akin,” Tiangco said.

(I said, 'Speaker you know I didn't approach you about this, but since you're asking, this is what happened to me.)

Tiangco also reiterated his previous disclosures that President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr. scolded Romualdez and Co, with him present in a meeting, for refusing to fund the administration’s priority projects.

“I was embarrassed that the former Speaker was being scolded in front of me. It was after a family lunch in Bahay Pangulo. I was surprised,” he said.

Tiangco, however, clarified that Romualdez did not ask him for any taripa or commission and that he has no personal knowledge on supposedly deliveries on Romualdez.

Zaldy Co is facing multiple malversation, graft, and plunder cases and is currently at large.

Romualdez, meanwhile, is detained and has been suspended by the Sandiganbayan from performing his official duties for 90 days. — BM, GMA News

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