Looming legal defeat of the Ombudsman’s own making

This year, the anti-corruption campaign has intensified under Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla. Amid public frustration over the 2025 flood control scandal, his office has pursued high-profile plunder charges against prominent figures, including Senator Rodante Marcoleta and former Speaker Martin Romualdez.

Senator Loren Legarda and Representative Leandro Leviste are undergoing preliminary investigation, while Michael Yang faces an P11-billion plunder complaint.

While these actions signal a drive to combat graft, they raise serious concerns. Legal experts, including Dean Tony La Viña, question whether the administration is selectively weaponizing the law against opposition figures and Duterte allies.

More critically, it forces an urgent constitutional question: Why are private individuals being deprived of liberty when the state’s evidence is glaringly deficient? This is the core crisis facing the three campaign donors of Marcoleta.

Under Section 2 of Republic Act 7080, plunder occurs when a public officer, in connivance with others, amasses at least P50 million in ill-gotten wealth. However, hitting this threshold is not enough. The state must prove the money was acquired through specific predicate crimes, like bribes or kickbacks.

Transferring large sums to a public official does not automatically establish plunder, especially when backed by a lawful purpose like a campaign contribution. The prosecution must explicitly link the funds to a criminal scheme where the official abused public office for personal gain.

These strict elements explain why plunder is notoriously difficult to prove. During a Judicial and Bar Council panel on 14 October, Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Geraldine Faith Econg criticized the Supreme Court’s landmark 2016 Arroyo ruling, stating that its high evidentiary bar makes it nearly impossible to secure convictions.

This high bar directly impacts the Marcoleta case, which involves P75 million in campaign contributions. While the amount exceeds the statutory threshold, the money itself is not inherently “ill-gotten.”

Under the Arroyo doctrine, the state must establish a common unlawful design and prove that the donors knowingly participated in a criminal plot. Without this link, the prosecution is reducing complex legal standards to a flawed claim that receiving substantial political support is a crime.

The strength of the state’s evidence is currently being tested. Following bail hearings before the Sandiganbayan Third Division, the petitions were declared submitted for resolution on 8 October. The prosecution wrapped up its witness presentation on 8 October, and after a directive to formally offer evidence by 15 October, the defense is scheduled to counter when the trial resumes on 19 October.

This timeline shines a spotlight on the strict standards Ombudsman Remulla introduced himself.

Through DoJ Circular 15 (s. 2024) and Ombudsman Administrative Order 1 (s. 2026), Remulla raised the threshold for preliminary investigations to “prima facie evidence with a reasonable certainty of conviction.” By the Ombudsman’s own rules, a plunder case requires ironclad proof of every statutory element, not just a spreadsheet of donations.

While the state’s case is faltering, Senator Marcoleta is not out of the woods. His own sworn affidavit reveals that he personally approached the donors, took exclusive control of the funds, and subsequently failed to declare them in his SOCE and SALNs. He even promised the donors on 15 December 2025 that he would shoulder all late tax penalties. This proves that the responsibility for disclosure irregularities rests solely on the lawmaker, not on the private citizens who donated in good faith.

Consequently, the three private donors are constitutionally entitled to bail. A legitimate campaign contribution backed by executed deeds of donation and paid donor’s taxes is fundamentally different from a corrupt kickback. Because the state has failed to show that these private citizens knowingly participated in an unlawful conspiracy, there is no legal basis to keep them detained.

The Sandiganbayan must protect constitutional rights over political headlines by taking two clear actions. Since the prosecution failed to present strong evidence of guilt, the court must release the donors. The court should also drop the charges entirely if the state cannot link these private citizens to a predicate crime.

Paperwork errors by a politician must never be used to jail private donors for plunder.