By Benjamin Cuaresma
MANILA — Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano on Friday stood firm on his call for the Senate to press ahead with its investigation into the alleged flood control fund scandal, rejecting Senator Erwin Tulfo’s suggestion that he should simply “relax.”
In a Facebook livestream held Friday evening for overseas Filipinos, Cayetano said the growing demand for accountability is coming from the public—not from him alone.
“The one who cannot relax is the Filipino people,” he said, arguing that citizens deserve a full accounting of what he described as the country’s biggest alleged corruption controversy, involving public funds that he claimed run into the trillions of pesos.
Cayetano’s remarks were in response to Tulfo, chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, who earlier advised him to calm down and assured the public that the panel would continue its inquiry into alleged irregularities in flood control projects once it formally convenes.
Unconvinced, Cayetano said the Senate has no reason to postpone the investigation despite the ongoing impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.
He pointed out that committee hearings can still be conducted on Thursdays and Fridays or held in committee rooms rather than the Senate session hall, arguing that legislative oversight should not be sidelined.
The minority leader also turned Tulfo’s criticism back on him, recalling the senator’s years as a television and radio broadcaster.
He noted that Tulfo often displayed strong emotions while tackling issues involving only a handful of individuals, making it unreasonable, he said, to urge restraint when the issue now concerns the use of massive amounts of taxpayers’ money.
For Cayetano, the issue goes beyond political differences, insisting that the Senate has a duty to determine whether public funds allocated for flood control projects were spent properly and to identify those responsible should anomalies be uncovered.
The verbal exchange underscored growing tensions in the Senate over the pace of the Blue Ribbon Committee’s investigation, as public scrutiny intensifies over the government’s flood mitigation spending amid recurring floods across the country.
ia/xf
