Ejercito faces ethics rap over Escudero case

Senator JV Ejercito is facing an ethics complaint from a lawyer who filed multiple charges against Senator Chiz Escudero, accusing him of “gross neglect of duty” for allegedly ignoring a similar complaint pending in his office.

In the complaint filed on Thursday, lawyer Marvin Aceron prayed for Ejercito’s removal as committee chair, his censure, and mandatory inhibition from future proceedings concerning Escudero’s ethics complaint.

Ejercito confirmed the filing but said it has “no basis.”

Aceron accused Ejercito of “grossly neglecting” his duties as chair of the committee by failing to act on the pending case against Escudero, which has been pending in his office since 2 October last year.

"This complaint does not ask the Senate to move mountains. It asks the Senate to do what barangays do in five minutes: assign a case number," the submission reads. “If there’s a will, there’s a way,” Aceron said.

Aceron specifically questioned the committee’s alleged lack of urgency, noting that it has still not assigned a case number, acknowledged the complaint, or provided any information on its status.

Ejercito, in response, rejected Aceron’s imputations, asserting that the ethics committee “has not been fully constituted,” with its members yet to be formally completed; therefore, it cannot hold meetings or conduct hearings.

Ejercito attributed the delay to marathon deliberations, including the bicameral conference committee, for the passage of the 2026 national budget. He also said that he “dealt with health issues too for much of December.”

“But rest assured that the ethics committee will convene and hear pending cases once it is fully constituted and when session resumes. The said cases will be heard in order of filing,” Ejercito averred.

While he acknowledged the ethics case against him as part of “democracy,” he pointed out that the committee is merely abiding by laws and Senate rules.

Aceron argued that Ejercito’s committee could have immediately acted on the complaint against Escudero, given the significant number of complainants totaling 347, including Constitutional Commissioner Prof. Ed Garcia and National Artist Virgilio Almario.

The ethics case against Escudero pertains to the P35 million in donations for his 2022 senatorial campaign from Lawrence Lubiano, president of Centerways Construction and Development Inc., one of the private firms implicated in the multibillion-peso flood control scam.

The complaint highlights, among others, the coincidence between Escudero’s acceptance of the donation and the growing contracts awarded to Centerways in Sorsogon—Escudero’s bailiwick—from 2021 to 2025.

Aside from the ethics complaint, Aceron also sued Escudero and several officials from the Sorsogon provincial government for graft, technical malversation, falsification, and fraud before the Ombudsman in mid-November last year.

The case, meanwhile, involves around P352.7 million in financial “irregularities” allegedly incurred by Sorsogon’s provincial government, as reportedly flagged by the Commission on Audit under Escudero’s stint as governor of the province in 2021.