“The moment gratitude is used to explain away P75 million in undisclosed money, it stops being ‘debt of gratitude’ and becomes exactly what our plunder and bribery laws were written to prevent.”

This was the statement issued by the Office of the Ombudsman in defense of its filing of a plunder case against Senator Rodante Marcoleta before the Sandiganbayan on Friday, 3 July.

The remarks came in response to Marcoleta’s repeated assertion that the case against him was an act of “selective justice” and evidence that the Ombudsman was “bending the law” to silence critics of the current administration.

However, the anti-graft body said the senator’s own admissions, coupled with the evidence gathered, were sufficient to support its finding that a crime had been committed, particularly since the alleged P75 million was omitted from both his Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN) and his Statement of Contributions and Expenditures (SOCE).

“This was not a decision made lightly or by choice. The evidence includes three cash donations totaling P75 million, undeclared in the senator’s SALN and campaign finance reports. This leaves our office no discretion to look away,” the Ombudsman said.

In support of its findings, the Ombudsman cited an earlier statement by Marcoleta, who claimed the donations were expressions of gratitude from supporters later identified as former congressman Mike Defensor and businessmen Joseph Espiritu and Aristotle Viray.

“My friends really gave me donations. You know what they asked in return? Just one thing. Accept our assistance for you, accept this amount. They asked just one thing in return: don’t disclose our identities,” Marcoleta said.

During a Senate session in which the issue was discussed, Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson argued that the admission could constitute indirect bribery under Article 211 of the Revised Penal Code.

The same issue had previously been reviewed by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), which ruled that it did not constitute an election offense because the donations were allegedly received before Marcoleta became an official candidate for the 2025 national elections.

Lacson noted that when Marcoleta was issued a show-cause order by the Comelec, he later argued that he received the contributions before he was considered a candidate under prevailing Supreme Court jurisprudence.

“When he was issued a show-cause order by the Comelec, he tried to backtrack on his arguments by saying that he received those contributions when he was not yet a candidate as defined by the decision of the Supreme Court,” Lacson said.

“But the funny thing, Mr. President, is that nothing could be clearer than Senator Marcoleta’s own admission. He accepted money so that he could have a debt of gratitude to those people, a clear admission against interest,” he added.