Allies of former president Rodrigo Duterte, led by former House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, filed 24 counts of criminal charges before the Ombudsman on Monday against House of Representatives leaders over the alleged unlawful insertion of P241 billion in the ratified bicameral conference committee report on the 2025 national budget.

The complaint includes 12 counts each of falsification of legislative documents and graft against Speaker Martin Romualdez, House Majority Leader Manuel Jose "Mannix" Dalipe, former House appropriations committee chairperson Elizaldy Co, acting chair Stella Quimbo, and the yet-unnamed John Doe and Jane Doe — representing the House’s technical staff.

Alvarez was joined by senatorial aspirant Atty. Jimmy Bondoc of PDP-Laban, lawyer Ferdinand Topacio, and Diego Magpantay, chairperson and president of Citizen’s Crime Watch, among others, during the filing.

“Imagine the insertion of P241 billion; that's a huge amount. You can't say that it's just a typographical error corrected by a technical working group. That is difficult, a large amount is involved,” Alvarez told reporters in Filipino after the complaint was filed.

According to Topacio, the 12 counts each of falsification and graft correspond to the 12 blank items in the bicameral report, which were allegedly filled in with appropriations after ratification.

“The one approved by bicam is zero; it says zero. So when it comes to the President, it must also be zero. You can't put zero and make it P90B or P80B or even P10,000, you can't do that,” Topacio insisted.

The complainants accused House leaders of illegally inserting P241 billion in the bicameral report, which had already been ratified by both chambers of Congress, violating Article 170 of the Revised Penal Code.

"The crime happened [in the House]. If it's in the Senate, perhaps the Office of the Ombudsman, they can also summon the Senate," Alvarez stated.

Gatekeeping allegations

Alvarez also accused the House leadership of gatekeeping the enrolled 2025 General Appropriations Bill (GAB), which allocates a P6.325-trillion budget, despite multiple requests from his office for a copy.

Earlier, Quimbo asserted that the enrolled bill is publicly available on the House’s website, allowing scrutiny of its “completeness and compliance with due process.”

She further argued that the GAB is "complete, with no blank allocations among its more than 235,000 line items," making the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) "lawful, valid, and fully enforceable."

Quimbo explained that the blank items were for final computation and were ministerial tasks assigned to the technical staff, explicitly authorized by the bicameral panel. She maintained that funding for these items was identified before the signing of the bicameral report.

Meanwhile, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin denied any Palace involvement in the bicameral report, stating it was an internal matter within Congress. However, he maintained that there were no blank items in the enrolled budget bill sent to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for signing.

The controversy over the alleged blank items was first brought to public attention by former president Duterte and Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab, the former appropriations panel chair.

Ungab and senatorial aspirant Vic Rodriguez, former executive secretary of Marcos Jr. and now aligned with the Dutertes, have since petitioned the Supreme Court to challenge the constitutionality of the 2025 GAA.

Retaliation for impeachment?

Dalipe dismissed the criminal charges as politically motivated, calling them retaliation against the House leadership following the historic impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte last week.

“The mere fact that only the House has been impleaded in the complaint raises serious questions about the true intent behind these allegations. The budget process is a shared responsibility, yet the focus on one chamber alone suggests a deliberate effort to mislead the public and cast doubt on the integrity of the House’s work,” he said.

Dalipe added, “It is also worth noting that these accusations come at a time when the House is taking a firm stand on accountability, particularly in addressing serious questions surrounding certain budgetary allocations. The timing and nature of these attacks against the House raise suspicions that they are merely retaliatory tactics aimed at deflecting attention from the real issue: the proper and lawful use of taxpayer money.”

The House Majority Leader also criticized Alvarez, a prominent Duterte ally, for leading the legal offensive.

“As a sitting member of the House during deliberations on the 2025 General Appropriations Bill, he had every opportunity to raise objections, question allocations, and point out any supposed infirmities during plenary discussions. Yet, he did not. His silence during the legislative process and his sudden emergence as a complainant only reinforces the fact that these accusations are not grounded on actual violations but are politically motivated attacks meant to discredit the House leadership,” he said.

Alvarez, however, denied that the complaint was linked to Duterte’s impeachment or that it had the imprimatur of former president Duterte.

“It was them who made the diversionary tactic. They created an issue that will cover this scandal in the 2025 budget," Alvarez argued, referring to the impeachment.