Two veteran broadcast journalists denied insinuations made by Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto that they were separately paid ten million pesos for interviewing Sarah and Curlee Discaya.
Sarah Discaya was Sotto’s opponent in the mayoral race in Pasig City in the May 2025 elections.
She was listed as the president of Alpha and Omega Gen. Contractor & Development Corp., one of the private contractor firms mentioned by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. found to be involved in anomalous flood control projects.
In an interview with Pep.Ph, Julius Babao clarified that his interview with the couple was a lifestyle feature and not a news report regarding their projects with the government.
“First of all, that interview is not a news report. It’s a lifestyle feature for my YouTube channel that features inspiring success stories. At the time and month in 2024 when the interview was made, it was a profile feature of a couple who rose from rags to riches because of their different business ventures,” Babao said.
Babao also said there was no P10 million involved in the interview.
“There is no truth to that. The purpose of the vlog is to inspire people who can be successful if they just work hard and have a strategy in life. Their rags-to-riches story is very interesting.”
Meanwhile, the management of Sanchez’ show Rated Korina also denied the P10 million payment, saying Sotto’s allegation was baseless.
“There is no such thing as a P10 million placement for an interview. This is simply not true. Malicious insinuations posted on Facebook, and which publicly besmirches the reputation of our shows or Ms. Sanchez, clearly constitute cyber libel,” the program’s management said in a statement.
Sanchez’ exclusive interview with Sarah aired on the TV network’s Net25 and YouTube channels on January 5, 2025.
Babao’s interview with the Discayas took place almost a year ago and can still be viewed on his Unplugged YouTube channel.
He also pointed out that Sarah was not yet running for mayor of Pasig when the interview took place last year.
“When the interview took place, the couple did not mention any plans to enter politics. No issues related to their government projects had come to light at that time.
All they wanted at that time was to share their success story with the public,” he said.
In his social media post on Thursday, August 21, Mayor Sotto shared, “With these interviews again going viral, let’s look at it from a different angle.”
“Bago tanggapin ng mga kilalang journalists ang alok para mag-interview ng Contractor na Pumapasok sa Politika, hindi ba nila naisip na, ‘Uy teka, ba’t kaya handa ’to magbigay ng 10 million* para lang magpa-interview sa akin?’
“I know for a fact that there are many good, honest people in media who are disappointed, if not angered, at practices like this, which undermine the integrity of their profession. In this case, maybe they didn’t do anything technically ‘illegal,’ but at the very least it should be considered shameful and violative of the spirit of their code of ethics.”
“Let’s remember that corruption is systemic. It permeates into every sector of society, not just government. But we can slowly but surely break this cycle if more and more of us consistently do our part, wherever we are and whatever our position may be, one step at a time.”
