Batangas 1st district Rep. Leandro Legarda Leviste wants the House leadership to remove Bicol Saro Party-list Rep. Terry Ridon as chairman of the Committee on Public Accounts.

Legarda, who carries himself as an anti-infrastructure corruption crusader, made this appeal Tuesday, Dec. 23, as he bared intentions of filing a resolution for the House of Representatives to conduct an inquiry on Camarines Sur's top contractor as well as alleged insertions made by Bicol Saro Party-list.

The resolution specifically targets the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) projects of Bicol Goldrock Construction, GCI Construction, and other companies owned by Steve and Gigi Ibasco.

“Cong. Ridon shouldn’t hide Bicol Saro Party-list’s insertions, whether for 2025 or 2026, if his party-list truly has no relationship with the Ibasco family, who own Bicol Goldrock and won the projects they proposed," Leviste said of his congressman-colleague.

Leviste believes that Ridon shouldn’t hold a leadership position in the House if such inquiry is to become impartial.

"To conduct an impartial investigation on the Ibasco companies and the insertions in the 2025 DPWH budget, I call for my colleagues to remove Cong. Ridon as chair of the House Committee on Public Accounts," he said.

Incidentally, Ridon's panel is a legislative watchdog against corruption in government. He is also one if the four quad-comm version 2.0 co-chairmen in the 20th Congress.

Leviste has been holding a supposed smoking gun in the form of the late DPWH undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral’s list of insertion proponents in the 2025 national budget.

He said that according to Cabral's files, the Ibasco companies’ projects were part of the “CENTI2025” list of projects, which wwre suspected "parked funds" or "pre-ordered" by contractors.

Leviste alleged on Monday, Dec. 22 that the files of the late Cabral showed that Bicol Saro Party-list proposed ₱150 million in projects in the 2025 DPWH budget — two ₱75 million roads linking Veneracion, Pamplona to Odicon, Pasacao in Camarines Sur.

Both contracts were awarded to Bicol Goldrock for ₱73.5 million, or 2 percent below the approved budget.

Ridon had earlier denied making the insertions, since he have just returned to Congress this last June 30, under the 20th Congress. "So how would I be able to make insertions to the 2025 budget if I am not yet a congressman when this budget was crafted in 2024, under the 19th Congress?” he said.

To this, Leviste clarified that he was referring to Bicol Saro Party-list as a whole, and not Ridon specifically. Ridon, a lawyer, subsequently called out the Batangas solon for lying and spreading fake news.