A two-page Office Order dated September 17, 2025 issued by Acting Ombudsman Dante Vargas has resulted in the removal of docket numbers assigned to criminal complaints filed during the 10 days immediately preceding.
The order contained two major policy directives; first, it suspended the Office Memorandum dated May 5, 2025 issued by former Ombudsman Samuel Martires which adopted the Automatic Twin Docketing of all complaints filed and second, it cancelled all docket numbers assigned to cases that were filed between September 7 to 16, 2025 or “10 days prior to the issuance of the Directive.”
There were two complaints directly affected by the policy change: the September 15, 2025 complaint filed by Davao City acting mayor Sebastian Duterte and the September 11, 2025 complaint filed by Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon.
“To streamline the proper disposition of cases, all docket numbers assigned to cases ten (10) days prior to the issuance of this Directive, …shall be cancelled and must undergo the Evaluation Process in accordance with the Manual of Operations of the Office of the Ombudsman,” the Acting Ombudsman ordered.
The immediate effect stripped the complaints filed by Vice Mayor Duterte and Secretary Dizon of their status as cases already undergoing active investigation, as both were required to undergo a mandatory evaluation process mandated by the General Guidelines on Case Evaluation and Records Management in the Office of the Ombudsman.
Acting Davao City Mayor Duterte alleged Cabinet officials and ranking police officers committed various criminal offenses including kidnapping, arbitrary detention, violation of the Anti-Torture Act (RA 9745), violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act (RA 3019), and Usurpation of Judicial Functions during the arrest and turnover of his father, former President Rodrigo Duterte to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, The Netherlands.
On the other hand, Sec. Dizon accused the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH)- Bulacan First District Engineering Office (DEO) officials and private contractors of conspiracy to defraud the government in relation to multi-million-peso ghost flood control projects in the province of Bulacan.
The Duterte complaint was seen as an obstacle in Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla securing a clearance from the Office of the Ombudsman, which he is under time pressure to submit to the Judicial and Bar Council for his application for the seat vacated by Martires.
But stripped of a docket number, it ceased to be an active case under investigation.
Secretary Remulla had earlier dismissed the complaint as an act of forum shopping and a political move intended to block his application.
The removal of the docket number from Dizon’s complaint, however, created a different sort of trouble.
Dizon had named 20 officials of the DPWH-Bulacan First DEO as respondents in his complaint for graft and malversation of public funds, together with construction firms SYMS Construction Trading, represented by general manager Sally Santos, Wawao Builders, represented by owner Mark Allan Arevalo, St. Timothy Construction Corp., represented by general manager Ma. Roma Angeline Rimando and owner Cezarah Rowena Discaya; and IM Construction Corp, represented by owner Robert Imperio.
On September 19, 2025, Acting Ombudsman Vargas issued an order placing 16 officials of the DPWH-Bulacan First DEO under preventive suspension, citing Dizon’s complaint as the basis.
But with the September 17, 2025 Office Order intended to “take effect immediately,” the Dizon complaint was stripped of its docket number, hence could not have been an active case at the time the suspension order was issued two days after.
