ICI sails thru the deluge

On Sept. 11, 2025, at the birth anniversary of his father Ferdinand Edralin Marcos Sr., President Bongbong Marcos Jr. (BBM) signed Executive Order 94 creating the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI).

- TONY LOPEZ

Named to ICI are: Retired Supreme Court Justice Andres Reyes, 75; former Public Works and Highways secretary Rogelio Singson, 77, and SGV Country Managing Partner Rossana A. Fajardo, a CPA and certified fraud expert. Named chief investigator and special adviser is Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, 64, a retired police officer.

Reyes was Supreme Court associate justice for three years, retiring in May 2020, and Court of Appeals justice from 1999 until 2010 when he became presiding CA justice until he retired in 2017.

“Justice Andy Reyes will be the chairperson of the ICI. He was a presiding judge of the Court of Appeals before. He has been for a very, very long time (a jurist), with a very good record of honesty and fairness, and a good record of being able to find justice for those who have been victimized,” President Marcos said.

Justice Andy is a third generation justice, being the son of former Court of Appeals presiding justice Andres Reyes Sr. and a grandson of CA and later SC justice Alex Reyes Sr.

It is with a sense of déja vu that BBM formed an independent commission to unravel the biggest political and economic scandal of this century - the over P1 trillion of tax money stolen through the years, since 2003 by BBM’s reckoning, by a syndicate composed of senators, congressmen, corrupt DPWH officials and greedy private contractors with the complicity of other offices like the Commission on Audit and the Department of Budget and Management and connivance of private companies like the casino operators and operatives of the Anti-Money Laundering Council.