Before ‘maleta,’ durabox used to haul ‘kickbacks,’ court told

MANILA, Philippines — Before they started using suitcases (“maleta”), the alleged bagmen working for then Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co used plastic bins to deliver millions of pesos in cash to various recipients as part of their share from public works kickbacks, a witness told the antigraft court on Thursday.

In support of Rodante Orbillo’s testimony, prosecutors presented what he claimed to be one of the actual bins used.

The “durabox”—as the bin is also called in the local market—was marked as a piece of evidence in the P7.4-billion plunder case against former Speaker Martin Romualdez and coaccused Co.

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Orbillo, who was introduced in court as an ex-Marine and a former bodyguard of Co, was the last of the five confessed bagmen to testify before the Sandiganbayan’s Third Division at the hearing on Romualdez’s petition for bail.

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He took one home

Until the witness gave this detail, the group of men who claimed to have worked for Co and delivered the kickbacks was collectively referred to in media reports as “maleta boys” because of their use of suitcases.

The prosecutors on Thursday, however, cited Orbillo’s judicial affidavit stating that they first used duraboxes.

In reply to questions from Associate Justice Fritz Bryn Anthony Delos Santos, the witness explained how he managed to take one of the used bins home.

He said Co’s staff at the lawmaker’s residence in Valle Verde, Pasig City, simply gave him a bin—the one now in court’s custody—after he told them that he could use a durabox himself for storing household items. —John Eric Mendoza