Speaker, 3 lawmakers face graft, falsification raps

MANILA, Philippines — Speaker Martin Romualdez and three other congressmen are facing criminal and graft charges before the Office of the Ombudsman for allegedly “falsifying” documents and illegally inserting billions of pesos worth of projects in the 2025 national budget.

Romualdez, House majority leader Manuel Jose Dalipe, former House appropriations committee chair Zaldy Co and acting House appropriations chairperson Stella Quimbo are facing 12 counts each of falsification of legislative documents and graft.

Apart from the lawmakers, several unnamed respondents were also included in the complaint for abetting and possibly carrying out the insertions under “unlawful instructions” from the lawmakers in the complaint.

The complaint was filed by allies of the Duterte family – former House speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and senatorial aspirants Jimmy Bondoc and Raul Lambino. They were accompanied by Citizens Crime Watch president Diego Magpantay and lawyers Ferdinand Topacio and Virgilio Garcia.

Alvarez, congressman of Davao del Norte, and company accused the lawmakers of illegally inserting P241 billion worth of funds into the General Appropriations Act (GAA) of 2025 even if the amount was not in the bicameral conference committee report signed and approved by both chambers of Congress.

The 29-page complaint also stressed that the P241 billion that appeared in the 2025 GAA was not in the versions approved on first, second and third reading in both the Senate and House versions.

“How is this even possible? The answer is simple: the P241-billion insert was successfully included in the GAA through the commission of a crime called Falsification of Legislative Documents under Article 170 of the Revised Penal Code,” the complaint read.

The complainants also pointed out that such insertions were never presented, deliberated nor voted upon by members of Congress.

The controversial insertions were raised last month in a petition filed by Davao City 3rd District Rep. Isidro Ungab and former executive secretary Vic Rodriguez before the Supreme Court questioning the constitutionality of the 2025 GAA.

The pair questioned the blank items in the bicameral conference report on budget allocations in several agencies.

President Marcos has denied the existence of such blank items, yet Quimbo confirmed otherwise, saying the funding for the items had been identified before the report had been signed.

“We are filing for 12 counts because they filled in blanks (in the budget) 12 times. Whatever ‘zero’ amount the bicam approves should still be zero when it reaches the President. No one can replace (provisions in the document) unless there are typographical errors, misspellings or errors in formatting,” Topacio told reporters on Monday.

“That zero cannot become P90 billion or P80 billion or P10,000 or even P1. So, we counted 12 instances that they did those insertions,” he added.

Motive questioned

Commenting on the charges filed against them, Dalipe wondered why the whole House was not named as respondent, when it acted as a collegial body when it approved the spending bill during plenary deliberations.

According to him, this raises “serious questions about the true intent behind these allegations.”

The Zamboanga City congressman also flagged Alvarez’s role as one of the complainants because as a House member, 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 reinforce the fact that these accusations are not grounded on actual violations but are politically motivated attacks meant to discredit the House leadership,” Dalipe noted.

Acidre, for his part, described the charges as “baseless.”

“These have all been answered by the Senate, and in the Senate by the senators themselves. This has also been answered by our senior vice chairperson of the House appropriations committee, Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo of Marikina City,” he said.

Acidre, chairman of the House committee on overseas workers affairs, emphasized that both the Senate and House leadership have already addressed the issue of purported blank spaces in the bicameral conference committee report.

He further clarified that the enrolled bill submitted to and signed by President Marcos was complete and lawful. The Tingog party-list representative also highlighted a specific provision in the bicameral report that allows for corrections of typographical errors.

Quimbo had addressed the issue of blank items in the bicameral report. She confirmed the presence of blanks, but clarified that funding for these items had been identified before the signing of the report.

“Yes. Notwithstanding any typographical errors or any adjustments that are needed as a result of amendments, the technical staff of both House and Senate are authorized to make all of these necessary corrections,” Quimbo earlier said.

She further gave assurance that the enrolled bill signed by the President contained no blank items.

“It is legal, it is fully enforceable, it is valid. Because our enrolled bill, it simply means that the General Appropriations Bill that came from Congress is complete and bore no blank items,” she emphasized. — Delon Porcalla, Edith Regalado