Accountability

The Davao City mayor told senator-judges he would have blocked the food-service contracts had he known, but the court found his interests adverse to prosecutors — and even the contract count and peso total depend on whose tally you believe.

Presiding Justice Geraldine Econg says the anti-graft court's 26 flood control cases are already at the defense stage, even as the Ombudsman preps former DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan to testify in the ₱573-million kickback cases he was once charged in.

A state audit of the Office of the Vice President's 2025 relief operations found missing beneficiary lists, undocumented changes to aid missions, and one batch of records the office says a typhoon simply took — with the largest single category, ₱84.12 million, tied to mission orders that never named who the aid was actually for.

Six shipments declared as poultry parts actually held 15,029 sacks of onions and 2,164 boxes of carrots without required clearances — and nine of the bureau's own Subic port personnel are among those now facing charges.

The Senate impeachment court recalled the subpoena that would have put Davao City Mayor Sebastian "Baste" Duterte on the stand this Wednesday, resetting it a week out so the court can first hear oral arguments on the disputed conviction-vote threshold.

A Securities and Exchange Commission official testified at the impeachment trial that Duterte's name still appears as a sitting director of Metro City Chow Foods Corp. in the company's 2025 filings — more than two years into a term during which the 1987 Constitution bars her from holding outside business interests.

Show-cause orders follow reports that construction kept going at a Lower Bicutan reclamation site despite a cease-and-desist directive, the same week DPWH opened a public portal tracking ₱445 billion in proposed projects nationwide.

Atty. Jose Roy III argues the flood-control kickback scheme ran "on a per-project basis," too scattered for one mastermind — an answer to who approved the budget, not to what happened once the money moved.

Mark and Camille Villar, both sitting senators, face graft charges alongside their parents and PrimeWater executives after auditors found joint venture deals covering 2015–2022 left three water districts short ₱65.6 million — a bill that surfaced only after the family had already sold the company.

Speaker Dy has pledged to "scrutinize every centavo" of the ₱7.2-trillion national budget. Congress's own ₱27.89-billion slice cleared the floor on Sept. 17 with zero interpellation — because, lawmakers said, there was no one left in the chamber to ask.