AFTER raising hopes that indicted former party-list representative Elizaldy “Zaldy” Co, the key figure in the massive flood-control corruption scandal that has consumed the nation since July 2025, would finally be brought back to the Philippines to face justice, the government has reported that the elusive Mr. Co has slipped from its grasp once again. As of Wednesday, Co was reportedly somewhere in Europe, and said to be pursuing an application for political asylum in France.
Make no mistake: this embarrassing and frustrating turn of affairs is entirely the result of government incompetence and a bureaucratic lack of urgency, primarily by Fredderick Vida, interim secretary of the Department of Justice (DOJ), with an assist by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). Their fumbling ineffectiveness has infuriated the entire nation and publicly embarrassed President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and unless this is actually the result he was seeking, heads should roll, as the saying goes.
Co, who once led the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, fled the Philippines in July 2025, shortly after President Marcos’ memorable State of the Nation Address (SONA), in which he revealed the existence of the massive corruption scandal involving flood-control projects managed by the Department of Public Works and Highways. Evidence quickly began piling up indicating that Co and his own company, Sunwest Construction and Development Corp., were at the center of the scandal, and he was swiftly ejected from his House seat. In November 2025, the Sandiganbayan formally charged Co and several others with graft and malversation related to an alleged P289-million ghost flood-control project in Oriental Mindoro, nonbailable offenses for which the antigraft court issued an arrest warrant for Co and declared him a fugitive from justice.
It took another month, however, for the DFA to cancel Co’s Philippine passports — he evidently had both a regular and a diplomatic passport — by which time Co had found refuge in Portugal, a country that does not have an extradition arrangement with the Philippines. Meanwhile, the DOJ did apply for a “Red Notice” with the International Police Organization (Interpol). A Red Notice is one level below an international arrest warrant — which would oblige any Interpol member-country to arrest Co and arrange for his return to the Philippines forthwith, the existence or lack of a bilateral extradition agreement notwithstanding — and is a request for law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally detain a subject pending extradition, subject to national law.
However, despite Vida’s claims that the application to Interpol was “not defective,” it evidently was, because six months on, the Red Notice has still not been issued, and the DOJ has had to submit a revised application and additional documents. Why this is so needs to be explained in detail by Vida and other responsible officials. A key principle behind Interpol action is that of reciprocity, meaning that the crimes for which a suspect has been charged in his home country should also be crimes in the country where he is found. Massive embezzlement of public funds is a crime in any country, so meeting this standard should not have been difficult.
As for the DFA, although its belated cancellation of Co’s passports was a bit frustrating, that apparently followed the proper process. However, its lack of coordination with its diplomatic missions, particularly in Prague, where Co was last seen, has been inexcusable. Co was stopped by German authorities on April 16 while trying to cross from Czechia to Germany with invalid travel documents. The German authorities acted appropriately, refusing him entry to Germany and notifying the Czech authorities that they had done so. Although the DOJ and DFA so far seem incapable of providing a cogent explanation of what happened next, it seems Co was briefly detained by the Czech authorities — which was reported to the president as Co’s being “in custody” — but then told to leave Czechia because his improper documents did not allow him to stay in that country. That is also a normal procedure.
President Marcos made exposing and bringing to justice the conspirators in the flood control scandal the central topic of his SONA last year. He should not have had to say that basic procedures by relevant agencies and officials to do that should be given the highest priority, and carried out with maximum efficiency, but apparently, that was an over-optimistic assumption on his part. He should take action to replace his incompetent officials with ones who can follow obvious instructions.
