The Philippine government is weighing whether a United Nations anti-corruption treaty can help track down and extradite a former lawmaker accused of being one of the masterminds behind the billion-peso flood control scandal and believed to be hiding overseas.
Presidential press officer and undersecretary Claire Castro said Manila was studying a proposal by Senator Panfilo Lacson to tap the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) to help locate and extradite former congressman Zaldy Co.
Co, who faces charges of corruption and malversation over billions of pesos allegedly misappropriated in infrastructure projects, is suspected to have fled to Portugal.
“We can explore UNCAC as it has international cooperation mechanisms but it will have to depend on the country,” Castro said on Monday, reading a statement from Foreign Affairs Secretary Maria Theresa Lazaro.
“Countries are obliged to provide as applicable and in accord with domestic law the widest possible mutual legal assistance to each other.”
