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Senator Erwin Tulfo is personally filing a serious complaint of oral defamation before the Mandaluyong City Prosecutor’s Office.
MANILA, Philippines – Senator Erwin Tulfo on Wednesday, July 8, filed a criminal complaint against former congressman Michael Defensor, lawyer Levi Baligod, and former bodyguards of the resigned congressman Zaldy Co for alleged involvement in the flood control mess.
Tulfo filed the serious complaint of oral defamation before the Mandaluyong City Prosecutor’s Office.
In June, he filed a verbal defamation complaint against three former Co. security guards
before the Pasay City Prosecutor’s Office for claiming that he received benefits from the flood control project and was involved in trafficking. This time, the complaint includes two other former security aides—Jeron Valderama and Bernard Gumban.
Tulfo said in his July 8 complaint that the respondents made “defamatory statements” against him in public “accusing me of serious crimes against me, subjecting me to unnecessary public scorn, ridicule, and scorn that the accusations were transmitted through social media.”
The former guards made the allegations during the “flood control investigation” led by Senator Rodante Marcoleta on June 4or the day after June 3 shaking of leadership which appointed Sherwin Gatchalian as Senate president. Tulfo has been the chairman of the Senate blue ribbon committee, which is investigating the flood control, since June 3. (READ: Raffy Tulfo pokes holes in 5 claims of 18 people who are alleged to be guards of Zaldy Co.)
During the June 3 incident, the former guards claimed that they had delivered boxes of money – the alleged implementation of the flood control project – to Tulfo, Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto III, ML Representative Leila de Lima, former congressman France Castro, and a Catholic priest. Father Flavie Villanueva. All those identified in the allegations, which include individuals who were not in elected positions when the transaction was allegedly carried out, denied it.
Tulfo told reporters on Wednesday that he had no flood control project or even a farm-to-market road associated with him when he was sworn in as an ACT-CIS MP in 2023, and when he was elected to the Senate in 2025. The General Supply Act will confirm this, he said.
“I did not get anything, not even a cent from government projects. There is nothing. (None.) Why will I get this much money from Zaldy Co? I got nothing (I didn’t get anything) at all,” he said.
(I didn’t get anything, not even a penny from government projects. Why will I get so much money from Zaldy Co when I don’t have any projects?) – Rappler.com
