Leviste hits House for prioritizing Barzaga over Gardiola probe: Tragic
MANILA, Philippines — Batangas 1st District Rep. Leandro Leviste said on Wednesday that it is “tragic” that the House has suspended Cavite 4th District Rep. Kiko Barzaga, while it has yet to probe Construction Workers Solidarity (CWS) Party-list Rep. Edwin Gardiola.
“I find it tragic that we prioritized the case of Congressman Barzaga before Congress even acted on the allegations—before even conducting an investigation into the allegations involving Congressman Gardiola’s DPWH projects,” Leviste said, speaking Filipino, during a press briefing.
“It is not specifically stated in the rules that a social media post is more egregious than alleged corruption in the DPWH. It is within the discretion of Congress to prioritize one matter over the other,” he added.
READ: Kiko Barzaga suspended for 60 days as House adopts ethics panel report
Barzaga was suspended for 60 days after an ethics complaint was filed against him for his “reckless, offensive, and irresponsible use of his social media platform” that is “unbefitting of a House member,” according to the recommendation of the House committee on ethics.
On the other hand, Leviste previously tagged Gardiola in the alleged flood control anomalies, saying Gardiola is the second biggest proponent of DPWH infrastructure projects.
He also claimed on a later occasion that companies linked to Gardiola “bought an estimated P22 billion of projects in the 2025 DPWH National Expenditure Program.”
Following this, Leviste also expressed disappointment over Gardiola’s supposed behavior during the House session on Monday when Barzaga was suspended.
“I was hoping to hear him respond to the allegations, and instead, what I saw is that he attended the session and walked around the session hall talking to other members of Congress as if nothing happened, as if it was normal for someone to be accused of billions of pesos in corruption and not give any explanation or response to the allegations,” Leviste shared.
“I’m disappointed that others in Congress acted on the floor as if it was totally normal, too. It showed that Congressman Gardiola is unperturbed by the allegations that he has not yet responded to and that others in Congress do not see anything wrong with it,” Leviste further said.
READ: Rage-baiting? Gardiola says Leviste’s ‘selfie’ a breach of decorum
It was during the same session that Leviste took an unsolicited selfie with Gardiola, which the latter tagged as an “attempt to rage-bait, ridicule, and malign.”
Leviste defended his actions, saying he had not seen Gardiola in any of the plenary sessions over the last three months and that he instinctively wanted to commemorate the latter’s appearance.
“Congressmen were asked to attend the session to vote on the suspension of Congressman Barzaga… and for whatever reason, it was the first time that I saw Congressman Gardiola in the plenary session in three months. When I entered the hallway, he was right there… my instinct was to capture the moment,” Leviste explained.
Additionally, Leviste said that when the flood control mess had just begun, Gardiola asked to talk, but during the House session on Monday, the CWS representative waved him off.
“I tried to talk to him because I talked to him on the phone of another member of Congress as we were starting these statements. And he said, ‘usap tayo kasama ni speaker’ [Let’s talk together with the Speaker], but he never got back to me because then I made public comments,” Leviste said.
The Batangas congressman also said that he was not trying to follow Gardiola to his seat to disturb him, but that it just so happened they are seatmates in the session hall. /jpv
