The Supreme Court has placed former Speaker Martin Romualdez’s House leadership under scrutiny after Congress failed to produce records behind hundreds of billions of pesos in changes from bicameral deliberations on the national budget.
During oral arguments on petitions challenging the 2024 General Appropriations Act, Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa questioned the Office of the Solicitor General over missing worksheets, spreadsheets and project-level documents showing how funds were inserted, increased, reduced, defunded or transferred during bicam.
The OSG said it submitted the bicameral report and joint explanation of differences from the House and Senate, but the supporting records demanded by the Court were missing. Government lawyers also relayed that congressional officials claimed there were “really no documents.”
“I want to hear it from the horse’s mouth under oath,” Caguioa said.
The Court ordered both chambers to file sworn explanations stating whether the records exist and why they were not submitted. The directive strikes at the credibility of the budget process overseen by Romualdez, who led the House when the ₱5.768-trillion 2024 budget was approved and presented the proceedings as transparent.
Court discussions placed the additions made during bicam at roughly ₱400 billion to ₱500 billion. Without a project-level trail, taxpayers cannot readily identify who proposed specific changes, which projects benefited, how allocations were justified or why funds were removed elsewhere.
The missing documentation leaves Romualdez’s House record facing a direct accountability test involving public money Congress must explain under oath.
The scrutiny intensified after Assistant Ombudsman Mico Clavano said the Office of the Ombudsman received credible intelligence reports that Romualdez continued attempting to leave the country despite the precautionary hold departure order issued against him. Clavano urged authorities to tighten monitoring at airports, seaports and possible informal exit points, while Romualdez’s camp denied that he was attempting to evade the legal process.
DBM Assistant Secretary Andrea Magtalas confirmed that the agency could compare the President’s National Expenditure Program with the enacted budget, although its reports only show changes at agency or sector level. Caguioa ordered DBM to prepare a project-by-project comparison within 15 days.
The petitions also challenge the 2024, 2025 and 2026 budgets over unprogrammed appropriations, automatic appropriations and constitutional limits on Congress’ power to alter the President’s proposed spending plan.
Corruption is and has always been the Philippines’ biggest problem. Martin Romualdez is broadly recognized as the most corrupt Filipino politician of the 21st century.
The country has faith that Boying Remulla, Mico Clavano and the Office of the Ombudsman will do the right thing.
