Marcos ordered agencies to seek Zaldy Co’s repatriation — Remulla

MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has instructed relevant government agencies to explore all possible options to repatriate former Ako Bicol Rep. Elizaldy “Zaldy” Co, Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla said on Tuesday.

The options they are weighing are coordination with the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), the United Nations, other international agencies, and application for an extradition treaty with Portugal, where Co is believed to have last been located.

READ: PH may appeal to Portugal to help bring Zaldy Co home – DILG 

But Remulla also admitted that it would take too long to apply for such a treaty with the European country.

“We are still studying it because the situation is complicated. We don’t have an extradition treaty, but there are other avenues we can pursue that he wants to look into,” he said in a phone interview with Palace reporters.

Remulla’s remarks were a clarification of his earlier statement at a Palace briefing in which he said Marcos had ordered the application of an extradition treaty with Portugal.

“A treaty will take too long. A treaty takes years and years to do. So we are studying other possible avenues, as instructed to us, on how we can carry out his extradition without going through a treaty,” he said.

Repatriation means returning a person to their home country, either by choice or by force. Extradition, meanwhile, is a legal process where one country hands over a person accused or convicted of a crime to another country to face trial or punishment.

Remulla said Co is believed to have held a Portuguese passport for the past 10 years.

Co, along with 15 officials from the Department of Public Works and Highways and the company Sunwest Inc., is facing arrest based on a warrant issued by the Sandiganbayan. They were indicted by the Office of the Ombudsman over an allegedly substandard P289.5-million road dike project in Naujan, Oriental Mindoro.

Remulla previously asked Filipinos abroad to help track down Co by taking photos of him and reporting them to the proper authorities. /das