The public demand that Zaldy Co “come home and say it under oath” misses the nature of the crisis. In ordinary circumstances, yes, whistleblowers return, testify, submit themselves to cross-examination, and let institutions do the work. But this is not an ordinary moment. And Zaldy Co is not a normal whistleblower. He is not a reformist, not a technocrat, not a bureaucrat who resisted corruption. He is part of the machine. He is a creature of the system he is now exposing. Which is precisely why his testimony, even delivered through a shaky video and not a Senate microphone, carries political threat.
In a functioning justice system, the next step would be obvious. Come home. Swear under oath. Present documents. But the real battlefield here is not the courtroom. It is the court of public perception. And in that arena, evidence does not determine reality. Narrative does. Zaldy Co has already detonated the narrative. He has directly implicated the President in the P100 billion insertion. He has described meetings, names, bags, and orders. Whether these claims will prosper in court is irrelevant to the damage done. In the realm of politics, a detailed accusation that feels truthful is often more potent than a fact that is proven.
The defenders of the administration insist that “if he does not testify under oath, his words have no weight.” This is wishful thinking. Political scandals do not begin in courtrooms. Courts only formalize what public opinion has already judged. In the Marcos administration, the pressure is not legal but reputational. And in the reputational sphere, Co has already succeeded. He has struck at the story the government tried to build: the President as moral crusader, the Speaker as reformist architect, the purge as proof of integrity. With a single video, Co has inverted the narrative, exposing the anti-corruption campaign as selective, self-serving, and orchestrated. He has transformed the crusaders into suspects.
Whether Co ever sets foot on Philippine soil again is immaterial to this shift. If he returns, the hearings will be a circus. If he refuses, his absence will be interpreted as fear of the very people now insisting on transparency. Either outcome weakens the administration. His physical location does not matter. The narrative he released cannot be retrieved.
The demand that he “show evidence” also misses the political reality of the moment. Evidence is not what threatens this administration. What threatens it is the plausibility of his story. Everything he described fits the existing public suspicion about budget politics, presidential duplicity, and legislative opportunism. He has not introduced a new scandal. He has merely given the public a name, a face, and a sequence to what Filipinos already believed: that corruption is not aberration, but architecture.
The biggest question is whether he needs to prove anything at all. The answer is no. Political ruin does not require legal conviction. It requires erosion of trust. In a system built on image, a single blow to credibility can do more lasting damage than a court ruling. The Marcos administration built its legitimacy on a thin layer of narrative engineering: we are competent, we are clean, we are new. Co’s testimony fractures that façade. All he needs to do is keep talking. He does not need a witness stand. He only needs an audience.
The administration can deny every word he says. It can question his motives, attack his character, and cite his absence. None of that stops the deeper effect. Once the public imagines the President personally directing P100 billion in insertions, the stain becomes permanent. Scandals do not rely on proof. They rely on the inability of the accused to erase the image created in the public mind.
Zaldy Co has already succeeded in that. Whether he returns or not, whether he testifies or not, whether he presents documents or not, he has inflicted the one injury a political system fears most: he has made the powerful look like liars. In politics, that is often enough to destroy a presidency long before the courts ever convene.