CALOOCAN Rep. Edgar Erice said any proposal for the Liberal Party (LP) to strike an alliance with the Marcos administration is inconsistent with the party’s core principles unless the administration first addresses what he described as the largest alleged corruption scandal in the history of the national budget and infrastructure program.
Erice, a party member and former ranking executive, stressed in a statement on Thursday the LP has always stood for “transparency, accountability, and good governance.” “We cannot abandon these principles for the sake of political convenience,” he said.
Serious questions remain unanswered regarding large-scale budget manipulations involving flood control and other infrastructure projects, which Erice believes resulted in the loss of trillions of pesos in public funds through ghost projects, substandard infrastructure, and questionable budget reallocations.
“What makes this issue even more compelling is that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. himself was the first to publicly raise concerns about irregularities in flood control projects,” he said.
“He promised to determine the truth and hold accountable those responsible. Unfortunately, despite those commitments, the Filipino people have yet to see a comprehensive accounting of what actually happened or who has been held responsible,” Erice said.
He noted that instead of full transparency, the public witnessed political infighting, finger-pointing, and efforts that, in his view, weakened public confidence in democratic institutions, including Congress, as well as using government institutions to suppress dissent.
“There is a growing perception that institutions such as the Ombudsman and the National Bureau of Investigation have been used not only to conceal the truth but also to harass critics of the administration. Whether these concerns are justified can only be answered through independent, impartial, and credible investigations,” Erice said.
He said the LP’s identity has always been rooted in the defense of democracy and the rule of law.
“The leaders of the Liberal Party, including the late senator Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino Jr., sacrificed their freedom — and in Ninoy’s case, his life — in the struggle against authoritarianism, corruption, and abuse of power. Those sacrifices should never be diminished by political expediency,” Erice said.
He warned that joining the administration without resolving the accountability issues would undermine the very principles upon the LP was built.
Erice also likened any premature political alliance to “the temptation of the forbidden fruit offered to Adam and Eve” — appealing in the short term but potentially destructive to the party’s moral credibility and long-term future.
He stressed that until the people are given the truth, those responsible are held accountable, and public confidence in institutions are restored, “any alliance with the Marcos administration would not simply be a political decision — it would be a test of the Liberal Party’s integrity, principles, and fidelity to the values it has always professed.”
