Ombudsman Remulla lowers the boom on Romualdez and Escudero
OMBUDSMAN Jesus Crispin Remulla’s announcement that he is preparing plunder charges against former House speaker Martin Romualdez and former Senate president Francis Escudero is all but revolutionary in strengthening our justice system — if it is pursued of course.
For the first time ever, a former Senate president and a former speaker of the House will be charged for stealing huge amounts of public funds in the same scam and thrown in jail until their cases are decided upon, which could take years.
When the charges are actually filed in the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court, it will eclipse in significance the plunder charges against former president Joseph Estrada and his senator son Jinggoy in 2001.
There was tremendous outrage not just from the masses but more importantly from the elites against Estrada and his son at that time that their persecution and conviction was inevitable, Erap was ousted as president before the plunder trial began and therefore was virtually powerless to stop it.
This time around, Romualdez’s cousin, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., is still president and controls Congress and such executive branches such as the justice department, and therefore wields the enormous powers of the presidency and could use their billions of pesos in budgetary funds to stop Romualdez’s prosecution.
Remulla is proving to be a true and bold patriot in pursuing the cases against Romualdez and Escudero. He was helped though by the hearings in the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee on the source of the plunder, funds intended for flood control projects.
While Marcos’ allies are blocking the adoption of the Blue Ribbon report, the draft had recommended to the Ombudsman the filing of charges against Romualdez, and senators Escudero, Estrada, Bong Revilla and Joel Villanueva, as well as former House representatives Zaldy Co and Mitch Cajayon-Uy for the following crimes: plunder under Republic Act 7080; malversation of public funds; direct bribery; violations of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act and of the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees. While he denies it, Remulla appears to have a copy of the draft report, and is following its recommendations
DPWH secretary also
The same charges, except for plunder, were recommended against former Public Works and Highways secretary Manuel Bonoan and 30 other officials of the department as well as 24 owners of construction companies involved in the flood control scam. Education Undersecretary Trygave Olaivar, fingered as an intermediary between the contractors and the government officials, was accused in the draft report. A grandnephew of former executive secretary Lucas Bersamin, Adrian, accused by a DPWH official as also an intermediary in the scam, wasn’t.
Dismissed DPWH Bulacan first district engineer Henry Alcantara who returned P611 million that he had stolen through the flood control scam wasn’t included in the list of persons that the blue ribbon committee recommended to be charged. Neither was dismissed DPWH undersecretary Roberto Bernardo who implicated the four senators as well four others in the scam.
While the committee said that the death of undersecretary Maria Cabral may have extinguished her criminal and administrative liability, her estate can still be held liable, should evidence warrant, for restitution and damages.
The cases will be heard by one or more of the seven divisions (consisting of three justices each) of the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court. Out of the 19 currently serving justices (one is still vacant), six were appointed by President Benigno Aquino III, eight by President Rodrigo Duterte, and five by Marcos. It would therefore be likely that the divisions hearing the cases would be dominated by appointees of Duterte or the late Aquino III. We cannot dismiss the likelihood though that the accused will use the billions of pesos they are alleged to have stolen from the flood-control projects to bribe the justices.
The trial will last years, most definitely into the next president’s term; Estrada’s trial lasted four years. As in the case of the Estradas, Romualdez and Escudero as well as the two former representatives would likely be jailed unless they can wiggle out of the law’s prohibition that they be freed on payment of bail.
A convergence
This marks a rare convergence of three elements that are usually absent in Philippine governance: documentary evidence, legislative exposure and prosecutorial action.
Remulla said the cases, “may be filed as early as May,” adding that “there was a conspiracy to commit plunder” and that the evidence could be put together without difficulty.
That statement alone is extraordinary. It signals not only intent but confidence — that the evidentiary trail, assembled over months, is sufficiently coherent to sustain prosecution.
But this development is the product of a chain of events, each reinforcing the other.
First, there were the televised hearings of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, which examined the flood control controversy and, in the process, exposed how the budget was being crafted, altered and implemented. Those hearings did not merely uncover anomalies; they established patterns — how projects were inserted, how allocations were shifted, and how implementation deviated from stated objectives.
Second, there is the February 2025 letter to President Marcos of Rep. Zaldy Co, former chairman of the House appropriations committee, which provides an insider’s account of the same processes that the Senate hearings had begun to map out. Read alongside the blue ribbon proceedings, the letter is not an isolated complaint but a corroborating document that fills in operational details. (The letter can be read in Co’s Facebook account “Rep. Zaldy Co.”)
The letter significantly does not rely on general accusations but on descriptions of actual decisions and their consequences.
Co recounts, for instance, how funding for key infrastructure projects was reduced or realigned in ways that could disrupt economic activity. He notes that cuts to infrastructure allocations — particularly those involving road networks linking Batangas and Quezon — would lead to “severe traffic, massive inconvenience… and billions in revenue losses.” This is not an abstract policy disagreement; it is a description of how budget decisions, to accommodate graft, resulted in real economic costs.
Social programs
The letter further describes how social programs were affected. The P50-billion reduction in 4Ps funding — shifted into unprogrammed appropriations — did not eliminate the allocation but deferred its release, effectively weakening the program’s immediate impact. Such maneuvers are technically defensible but politically consequential, especially when applied to programs targeting the poorest sectors.
Perhaps more revealing is the description of how the budget process itself was conducted. Co narrates a system in which allocations were not simply deliberated but negotiated under pressure. He recounts how threats by House representatives to delay budget approval were used to force concessions, including the acceptance of certain cuts and realignments. This is a crucial point, because it suggests that the integrity of the budget process — its sequencing, its timelines — was itself used as leverage.
The blue ribbon hearings revealed this to the public. The Co letter provides an internal account of how they unfolded.
Taken together, they form a narrative that is difficult to dismiss as partisan or speculative. The Ombudsman acknowledged that this case buildup draws in part from testimonies presented during those Senate hearings, indicating that the investigation did not proceed in isolation but was anchored in material already subjected to public scrutiny.
This is how institutional accountability is supposed to work: legislative inquiry surfaces evidence, and prosecutorial bodies evaluate and act on it.
Budget preparation is the core of governance. If that process is compromised, the effects are not limited to a few projects; they extend across sectors—education, infrastructure, agriculture, social protection.
This is why the references in Co’s letter to education funding are significant. He notes that limitations imposed on the Department of Education’s budget curtailed the hiring of teachers, forcing the agency to “scramble for funds to fill up 20,000 teaching posts.” That is not a marginal issue. It has a direct impact on public service delivery.
Similarly, his discussion of allocations to agencies such as the DPWH, the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) illustrates how competing priorities were resolved not through transparent criteria but through negotiation and, at times, coercion.
Co’s allegation of a “rice cartel” further expands the scope. It suggests that the consequences of these budget and policy decisions extend into market outcomes — specifically, the persistence of high rice prices despite tariff reductions. If a small group of importers dominates supply, and if policy adjustments fail to benefit consumers, then the issue is not merely administrative but structural.
These are precisely the kinds of linkages — between budget decisions, project implementation and market outcomes — that the Blue Ribbon hearings began to trace and that the Ombudsman is now attempting to formalize into legal charges.
The inclusion of conspiracy in the prospective charges is therefore not incidental. It reflects the view that these were not isolated acts but coordinated actions involving multiple actors across institutions — a conspiracy.
That is a serious allegation, and it will have to be proven in court. For now, what matters is that it is being pursued. Criminals, even if they occupy the highest positions of the land and are among the country’s wealthiest, should be thrown in jail. That will strengthen our institutions.
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Ombudsman Remulla lowers the boom on Romualdez and Escudero
Source: Breaking News PH
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