27 boxes of money were sent to Marcos! A Philippine legislator revealed shocking information: he is the mastermind behind the "substandard engineering" project!
Recently, former Philippine House Representative Zaldy Xu, while on the run, publicly accused the current president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., claiming that he was deeply involved in a corruption case involving hundreds of billions of pesos related to a flood control project, and personally received 27 boxes of cash bribes from himself.
This matter began with a project called "Metropolitan Flood Management Project" in the Philippines. The project started in the 2010s, with a total budget of 34.8 billion pesos (approximately 620 million USD), partially funded by international organizations such as the World Bank and Japan International Cooperation Agency, with the aim of solving the long-standing flooding problem in Manila.
However, after many years, many key projects either remained unfinished or had poor quality — for example, concrete strength was less than half of the design standard, drainage pipe diameters were reduced by 30%, and pump station equipment frequently malfunctioned, which local media called "substandard engineering".
In late 2023, the Philippine Anti-Corruption Commission launched an investigation into the project, discovering that at least 12 contract segments involved systematic bid rigging, inflated prices, and embezzlement of public funds. Preliminary estimates suggest that the amount involved exceeded 9 billion pesos (about 160 million USD). Several contractors, local officials, and members of parliament were charged, including Zaldy Xu, who once served as CEO of the House Committee on Public Works.
This year, Xu fled abroad after being wanted, but in November 2025, he appeared via encrypted video call to several Philippine media outlets, revealing shocking details: between 2019 and 2021, he acted as an intermediary coordinating "profit distribution" between multiple construction contractors and high-ranking officials.
According to his account, during one transaction in 2020 alone, 27 standard boxes filled with cash (each box containing about 50 million pesos in 1000-peso bills) were secretly transported from the contractor's fleet to the private residence of then-presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in the Ilocos Norte province. Calculating this, the bribe alone amounted to 13.5 billion pesos (about 240 million USD).
More importantly, Xu claimed that these funds were not used for the campaign, but rather to obtain Marcos's "green light" for specific engineering contracts — including assigning subcontractors, lowering audit standards, and interfering with the commission's investigations. He even provided some transfer records, driver testimonies, and transport route maps, although they have not yet been verified by the judiciary, but have already triggered an emergency hearing in the Philippine Congress.
Original article: www.toutiao.com/article/1849925980210180/
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