Magalong on leaving ICI: I struck a nerve

Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong cried foul over a plot to ease him out of the Independent Commission for Infrastructure or ICI as he lamented a “deep seated” corruption in government.

- By MARC JAYSON CAYABYAB

Discussing his brief stint in the ICI, Magalong did not mince words in calling out “corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, Department of Public Works and Highways officials and contractors who made a cottage industry or a livelihood program” out of ghost DPWH projects or substandard works.

Magalong also described as “shameless, callous and hypocritical” the claim of former Ako Bicol congressman Zaldy Co that his resignation from the House of Representatives is the “ultimate sacrifice.”

“There's no transparency whatsoever. They’re just so comfortable doing it that they’re not afraid. Lately, a congressman involved, Zaldy Co, said he did not abandon it, that it was a sacrifice. My God! You stole from national coffers and you will say it was a sacrifice on your part and not an abandonment?” Magalong said, referring to Co’s fellow Ako Bicol Rep. Alfredo Garbin’s statement that “Co’s act of resignation is not an abandonment, but a sacrifice.”