05/10/2025
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About one trillion pesos public funds from national budgets went to personal accounts and pockets of former house speaker Martin Romualdez, Elizaldy Co, other congressmen, DPWH engineers, and contractors.
Romualdez, Co, with blessings from the president, managed to siphon taxpayers money through government contractors by befriending and controlling them. Only 15 out of many contractors in the Philippines bagged about 100 billion worth of flood control projects.
In Zamboanga del Sur, one construction company, ZMS Construction & Dev't Corporation, bagged hundreds of millions worth of contracts as noted by Rappler published on September 30, 2025.
We start to see patterns and similarities.
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The Marcos-Romuadez political dynasty made corruption (on a large scale) possible. The vindictive tendencies of Romualdez to legislators and anyone who attempted to question was an effective tool to silence representatives who needed allocations for their local projects.
Barely a year after the 2022 national election, the Yu dynasty began planning out in getting rid of opposing political leaders. Zambusurians noted common points of friction between Yu and local leaders that lead to severing of political ties. The common cause of political conflicts in Zamboanga del Sur is construction-related. They often quarrel over quarries, construction projects and business interests.
Martin Romualdez, allegedly was the architect of the countryโs biggest corruption scandal. He leveraged his power as speaker of the 19th Congress to insert priority allocations. Such legislative maneuvers by Martin Romualdez with his deputy speakers and committee chairmen got into public eyeโs attention after the presidentโs SONA.
Similarly, Zambosurians just gain confidence talking about Yuโs business interest in sticking to politics after the billion-worth of alleged corruption by top national leaders.
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Team Yu holds key positions in the province and the Yu dynasty directly influence and control from town mayors down to barangay workers. Mr. & Mrs. Yu made sure to have elected family members in vulnerable places (locality with potential opposing leaders).
Yu family's business includes construction. No doubt one contractor, ZMS Construction cornered most of the projects in the province.
We heard about substandard projects as exposed by citizens from Kumalarang and Tambulig. But we heard Divinaโs repeated assurance that none of Yuโs projects fail quality controls. But the citizen's phone camera captured the truth.
We just learned from a Rappler article that at โleast three projects worth P48.7 million were awarded to ZMS Construction from December 2023 to April 2025.โ This was exposed by Rappler in an article, โVantage Point] ZMS Construction: A case study on how one family bagged dubious contractsโ. It further said, (quote)
Records show that ZMS Construction has cornered hundreds of millions of pesos worth of contracts for many flood control projects riddled with audit red flags.
How did ZMS Construction get such plum contracts? The answer lies in a familiar Philippine formula: political connections, well-placed protectors, and a bureaucracy too weak โ or too complicit โ to enforce accountability.
As Zambosurians follow national political scandals involving top government leaders and billions of pesos public funds, local citizens started to gain confidence to demand transparency and accountability. How do our local leaders dominated by Yu political families spend public funds on much-needed infrastructure projects?
Mr and Mrs Yu managed to brush aside issues on political persecution, political dynasty, transparency and accountability. Recently, former House Deputy Leader now provincial governor, Divina Grace Yu, made rounds in social media defending ZMS Construction and assured the public that nothing was misspent.
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As this issue develops, several questions none dared to ask during the campaign period of the May 2025 election:
Who's behind campaign financing for Team Yu? Who financed what? We have not seen the Statement of Contribution and Expenditures (SOCE) of Victor Yu and Divina Grace Yu. We presumed that the teamโs campaign financing complied with the regulatory requirements on contributions and expenditures.
The biggest chunk of money spent by local candidates, specifically by Zamboanga del Sur politicians since the Cerilleses is the โbudget sa mga botanteโ. Local parties would keep a master list containing the
Who financed the โbudgetโ given to voters listed to vote Team Yu? If we add up the 1,500 to 2,000 pesos per voter (although not everyone was given the cash based on the wisdom of the team's local focal person who are mostly casual workers of the provincial government)) could reach close to a billion pesos!
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During the election campaign period, the issues on nepotism, political dynasty, business interests and accountability were never clearly articulated in traditional mass media and social media. There were clear attempts to whitewash election issues that unfold during the period of election mania (months before the election day).
Except the illegal mining issues in Dumingag (that was sticky due to concerns by the Catholic church leaders from Salug Valley and Pagadian), many issues died down. Among those important election issues that never gained traction on the public discussion table were: (1) increasing number of Zambusurians living below the poverty threshold; (2) the high rate of functional illiteracy and (3) the failures of former Governor Victor Yu on good governance checks.
It is public knowledge that Yu political family and the Reveloโs are now on good terms but nothing indicates close ties.
One big player in construction was visibly close to the Yu political dynasty. In the May 2025 election, Team Yu endorsed the One Coop party-list. The nominees are (first nominee) lawyer Jihan Bana-Glepa - the wife of Molave mayor Cyril Glepa and niece of Divina Yu. The second nominee and presumably the financier of the part list group, was Rodolfo Hilot of Rudhil Construction and Enterprises Inc. The party-list got one seat in the 20th Congress.
Yuโs close business connection to big players in construction like Rudhil Construction and Enterprises Inc. could not be established. They are on good terms, yes but they are not competing with each other (with Yu having ZMS Construction) as Rudhil is closely tied to Bongbong Marcos having contributed 20 million pesos of Marcosโ election campaign. Hilotโs campaign donation to Marcos as reflected in Bongbongโs SOCE is tagged as shady since government contractors are not supposed to get involved in campaign finance.
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๐ซ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐.
