The camp of Leyte 1st District Rep. Martin Romualdez sought to disprove notions that the former Speaker was regarded as one of the “masterminds” in the multibillion-peso flood control scandal, citing recent proclamations by the Office of the Ombudsman.

Atty. Elaine Atienza, the spokesperson of Romualdez, stated that the national budget was not necessarily controlled by a single individual; instead, it was determined through a process that begins through the executive agencies of government.

“We take exception to the recent public pronouncement suggesting that Rep. Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez was the mastermind of the flood control scheme because he, as Speaker of the House at the time, supposedly had “functional control” over the budget process,” Atienza said in a statement.

“Let us make this clear: there is no such thing as “functional control” over the budget process,” she added.

Functional control over panels

The lawyer’s remarks were in response to Assistant Ombudsman Mico Clavano’s statement that there was a “school of thought” within the investigative body that Romualdez was the “mastermind” of the scandal.

Clavano further asserted that, despite the solon’s being not a member of the House Committee on Appropriations, which deliberates on the budget, the House leadership still had functional control over small committees like the aforementioned panel.

“Corruption is not official; nothing is written on paper. So there will be attempts to layer, there will be attempts to hide what they were doing. So obviously it will be just a matter of defense that he was not included in the small committee,” he said through a radio interview on DZMM.

For their part, Atienza maintained that lawmakers did not necessarily have discretion over how the budget was released, after thorough deliberations between the Senate and the House and final approval by the President.