A motion has been filed with the Office of the Ombudsman calling for the preventive suspension of Speaker Martin Romualdez and three other lawmakers from the House of Representatives over criminal complaints filed against them last February 10.
Davao del Norte Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez, lawyer Ferdinand Topacio, Citizen’s Crime Watch president Diego Magpantay, and retired Brig. Gen. Virgilio Garcia argued that placing the respondents under preventive suspension would ensure the investigation would proceed unhampered.
The complainants, together with senatorial candidate Jimmy Bondoc, are seeking the indictment of Romualdez for 12 counts each of falsification of legislative documents and violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act over the alleged insertion of expenditure items worth P241 billion in the 2025 budget bill.
Named co-respondents of the Speaker were Reps. Manuel Dalipe (Zamboanga City), Elizaldy Co (PL-Ako Bicol), Stella Quimbo (Marikina City), and John and Jane Does representing the personnel of the Technical Working Group of the Bicameral Conference Committee.
The complainants said the affected agencies in the insertions were the National Irrigation Administration (NIA), the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA), the Department of Agriculture, DA Small-scale Irrigation Projects, DA-Agricultural Machineries and Equipment, DA Buffer Seed Stocking, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), BFAR Postharvest Equipment and Facilities, DA Subsidy to PCA, and DA-NIA Subsidy for National Irrigation Systems and Communal Irrigation Systems.
BLANK SPACES
Quimbo had already explained that the blank spaces in the budget bill were for the necessary corrections to be filled in by the technical staff and that there was no more discretion on the part of lawmakers or Bicameral Committee members to change any figure as the document was “at the point of signing.”
She stressed that the technical staff of the House and the Senate were authorized to make these corrections on typographical errors or adjustments.
However, the complainants said the Ombudsman is empowered under Republic Act No. 6770 to order the preventive suspension of the respondents to preserve the integrity of the investigation.
“The respondents herein are some of the more powerful and influential officials in government, particularly in the legislature. It does not take a superbly imaginative mind to know that respondents will do or cause to be done any and all acts …to suborn witnesses, tamper with evidence and perjure testimony to escape penalty,” they pointed out.
Even as the Ombudsman has yet to make a pronouncement on the validity of the allegations, the complainants claimed they have already presented “strong and overwhelming” evidence.
