Provincial disaster official Raul Agustin told ABS-CBN television that marooned flood victims were often reluctant to leave for fear their homes would be looted.
The Lopezes control and run Meralco, the electricity distribution monopoly on Luzon island (other interests: the ABS-CBN broadcasting network, the country's largest, as well as toll expressways and water services).
When he took the cash to the CBN in 2007, he said that it was a bribe given to him by James Ibori, then governor of the oil-rich Delta state, to stop the investigation of allegations of monumental corruption against him.