A "demolition job" appears to have been launched against former House Speaker, Leyte 1st Rep. Martin Romualdez ahead of his scheduled appearance before the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) on Tuesday, Oct. 14.

Deputy Speaker Antipolo City 1st district Rep. Ronaldo “Ronnie” Puno had this to say in a chance interview Monday, Oct. 13, when he was asked about the supposed revival of the farm-to-market roads issue against Romualdez.

“I think malungkot ang timing kasi (I think the timing is unfortunate because) the former Speaker is going to speak before the Independent Commission tomorrow so parang may konting demolition na nangyayari dito (so there's somewhat a demolition job going on here)," Puno said.

"There is scapegoating that is going on, nagtuturuan (there's finger-pointing) and then people are pointing to other people so that they will be able to escape their responsibility,” he noted.

Romualdez, president of the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD), has laid low for the most part following his resignation as Speaker last Sept. 17. A week after this, he was alleged to have received kickbacks in the flood control projects controversy, which the ICI had been investigating.

The farm-to-market issue, particularly involving alleged overpriced projects in Leyte, is a separate matter altogether that had seemingly been brought up out of nowhere by certain media outlets, at least according to Puno.

The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee said it may investigate alleged anomalies under the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

Puno pointed out that the projects in question were not large undertakings and had also passed the scrutiny of the concerned departments, including the DA secretary. He noted that the DA chief himself had earlier flagged “ghost” and “substandard” projects, but none of those were in Leyte.

“Kung maalala ninyo, nagbanggit siya ng mga ghost projects, wala ito doon. Nagbanggit siya ng mga substandard, wala pa rin ito doon (If you can remember, ghost projects were mentioned then but these weren't included. Substandard projects were mentioned, these weren't there also). So I don’t know where that report came from about the Leyte farm-to-market roads,” he said.

The deputy speaker underscored that farm-to-market roads does not only refer to rice products, but practically all types of agricultural produce. “It means farm. So kung anuman ang produce in the place (So whatever the area produces), it merits and deserves farm-to-market road."

Puno noted that the issue resurfaced only now, conveniently timed to coincide with Romualdez’s upcoming ICI appearance.

“There is all of these distractions that are being created and I’m sensing a lynch-mob mentality trying to pin the [former] Speaker alone to all of the things that have happened which is terribly unfair,” he said.

“I think these kinds of demolition and negative propaganda should be evaluated by the public in the right way,” Puno said.

The deputy speaker also questioned how the story was reported; he claimed that there was a lack of effort to get the side of those accused.

“Normally kung merong mga ganyan, lalabas ka sa frontpage (Normally if there's a frontpage story like that), you will be asked for a reply or to comment. I did not see that there was any request from the accused party to reply.

“You could have asked the people that are directly involved with it--the district engineer, the provincial agriculturists--nobody bothered to ask them. So humabol pa sila ng mga statements nila justifying the projects (So they tried to rush explanations to justify the projects),” he added.

But by the time those explanations came, the damage had already been done, Puno said.

“Sana in the coming weeks, months, sana (Hopefully in the coming weeks, momths, hopefully) we will be very careful about what we accept as news when there is an allegation. Let us make sure that these are properly based on real facts, not opinion.

“And I think that is unfair to so many people. There will be very many high level people involved in the things that are going to come,” Puno further said.