Ping warns Palace of cover-up perceptions in ‘Cabral files’

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December 27, 2025 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson has urged Malacañang not to downplay the possible role of Cabinet officials in the anomalous practice of inserting lawmakers’ infrastructure projects for kickbacks in the executive’s spending plan.

Lacson warned the administration to be careful with its statements, lest these be mistaken as a “cover-up,” as he urged the government instead to launch an inter-agency investigation into the executive’s role in the flood control mess.

“Instead of pursuing an honest-to-goodness inter-agency investigation by using whatever probative value was unearthed, mainly from the Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearings, to prematurely dismiss the probable involvement of some members of the Cabinet as ‘hearsay’ may be interpreted as a euphemism for ‘cover-up,’ ” the senator said yesterday.Lacson made the statement after Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro said there is “no probative value” to the “hearsay or tsismis” of Batangas Rep. Leandro Leviste, who said that lawmakers and contractors were in cahoots with Cabinet secretaries and undersecretaries outside the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to insert projects with the agency.

Castro clarified she was not questioning the pieces of evidence that had already been discovered through the hearings conducted by the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, which Lacson chairs.

She stressed that the administration and all relevant investigative bodies, including the Independent Commission for Infrastructure, are working to gather evidence so that the culprits may be prosecuted for their illegal acts.

Castro also said the alleged “Cabral lists or the DPWH leaks” which, based on reports, also linked First Lady Liza Marcos, “are still questionable.”

“There is no proof that they really come from DPWH,” the Palace press officer said.

Leviste said he obtained a list of proponents behind the budget insertions from the late DPWH undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral.

For Lacson, there is enough evidence to prove there is “plunder of public funds” all throughout – from the crafting of the National Expenditure Program, all the way to the “ghost” implementation of flood control projects.

Lacson urged the government not to downplay the incident and ignore public furor over the entrenched corruption that has long hounded DPWH projects.

Malacañang said yesterday that President Marcos will spare no one in investigations in alleged misuse of flood control projects funds.

‘Make files public’

House deputy minority leader and ACT Teachers party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio has asked the congressman to make public “all at once” Cabral’s alleged files on budget distribution to congressional districts covering 2023-2026.

“It would be better if he released everything all at once and let the public decide on the credibility of the information,” Tinio said in a statement.

“Otherwise, everyone will think that the selective disclosure is due to self-serving motives taking precedence over public interest.”

Leviste has been releasing, for several days, dozens of pages of documents supposedly showing DPWH budget distribution figures in the congressional districts in the country covering 2023-2026.

Tinio said Leviste’s piecemeal release of information may result in public suspicion.

“Rep. Leviste’s limited and partial release of the so-called Cabral files is welcome. So far, the information on the ‘allocables’ of district representatives is not new and has already been covered by recent investigative reports,” Tinio said, referring to Leviste’s Facebook posts on Dec. 24 and 25.

“He (Leviste) says the Cabral files hold information on everyone – party-lists, senators, Malacañang officials and the like,” he added. — Jose Rodel Clapano, Helen Flores, Artemio Dumlao