ONE of the unintended consequences of the plunder case against Sen. Rodante Marcoleta may be the creation of a dangerous precedent that could discourage ordinary citizens and businesspeople from participating in democratic politics.
Not because Marcoleta deserves sympathy, nor because his co-accused, former congressman Mike Defensor, should automatically escape accountability. Rather, because two private businessmen now find themselves facing the same severe criminal charge principally for having financially supported a political candidate whose own legal obligations they neither controlled nor fulfilled.
That distinction matters, and it is precisely what is being blurred in the current legal narrative.
According to the Ombudsman’s allegations, three financial transfers totaling P75 million were made in support of Marcoleta during the 2025 campaign. The prosecution now argues that these transactions formed part of a plunder conspiracy after they were allegedly omitted from Marcoleta’s statement of contributions and expenditures (SOCE) and other required disclosures.
If the allegations against Marcoleta are eventually proven, then he must bear the consequences. Candidates are personally responsible for ensuring that campaign contributions are truthfully declared. They sign their own disclosures and cannot later shift that responsibility to those who merely contributed to their campaign.
Marcoleta was not an inexperienced first-time candidate. He is a lawyer who understood, or certainly should have understood, the legal consequences of failing to disclose campaign donations. If indeed these donations were omitted, that failure belongs to him.
The same may be said of Mike Defensor if evidence ultimately establishes his participation in any unlawful scheme. Defensor is himself a veteran politician who fully understands the legal and political implications of campaign finance and public accountability. He cannot plausibly claim to be merely collateral damage in a controversy involving one of his closest political allies.
The two businessmen occupy a fundamentally different position. The available facts suggest that they donated money in support of a senatorial campaign. They reportedly executed deeds of donation expressly identifying the transfers as campaign contributions and even paid the corresponding donor’s taxes, a step hardly consistent with an attempt to secretly funnel illegal money.
None of these facts automatically prove innocence, and neither do they establish guilt. What they do suggest is that these businessmen appear to have acted as campaign donors ordinarily would. If they genuinely believed they were supporting a candidate’s election campaign, why should Marcoleta’s subsequent failure to properly report those donations automatically transform them into conspirators in plunder?
That leap in logic is where the real danger lies.
Campaign finance is built on trust. Every contributor necessarily relies on the candidate to properly account for donations before the Commission on Elections. A donor cannot file another person’s SOCE, and a donor cannot amend a candidate’s statement of assets, liabilities and net worth. Those are legal obligations borne exclusively by the candidate, and shifting them retroactively to donors distorts the entire architecture of electoral accountability.
If every donor now faces the possibility that a candidate’s later misconduct can expose them to a non-bailable plunder charge, the chilling effect on democratic participation could be profound. Imagine hundreds of professionals, entrepreneurs, doctors, teachers, civic leaders or retirees deciding never again to financially support any political candidate for fear that they will be impleaded because of a candidate’s misconduct. That would impoverish Philippine democracy in ways that are not immediately visible but deeply consequential.
Ironically, the people who would suffer most are often opposition candidates. Businesspeople already hesitate to openly support politicians who are not aligned with those in power. If legitimate campaign donations can later become the basis for arrest because of a candidate’s own disclosure failures, rational donors will simply withdraw from the political process altogether. That cannot be healthy for a democracy that depends on competitive elections.
None of this should be mistaken as an attempt to excuse Marcoleta. Quite the opposite. This entire controversy exists because of his own alleged failure to comply with campaign finance disclosure laws. Transparency requirements are not mere technicalities. They allow voters to know who finances candidates, identify possible conflicts of interest and ensure that elected officials remain accountable to the public rather than to private benefactors.
If Marcoleta failed to disclose donations that should have been reported, then he should answer for that omission. If investigators can prove that the money was not genuinely intended as campaign support but constituted payment for official favors, then the law should take its full course. But that proof must be directed at the people who actually possessed the legal duty or the criminal intent.
It should not simply be inferred from the amount of the donation.
The law against plunder requires much more than the existence of large financial transfers. It requires evidence of knowing participation in a scheme to acquire ill-gotten wealth. That burden must be satisfied individually for every accused, and it cannot be diluted by convenience or assumption.
Otherwise, we normalize guilt by association.
Marcoleta allegedly received and failed to disclose the money. The businessmen allegedly gave it. Those are not the same acts, nor should they automatically give rise to the same inference of criminal intent. The irony is difficult to ignore: Had Marcoleta simply complied with the law and accurately disclosed the donations he received, these businessmen might never have found themselves facing plunder charges in the first place. Their predicament appears to stem less from anything they themselves did than from what Marcoleta allegedly failed to do.
That is why accountability should begin where responsibility most clearly lies.
The prosecution should vigorously pursue anyone who truly participated in corruption, but it should also avoid constructing legal theories that discourage lawful political participation and criminalize what has long been recognized as a legitimate feature of democratic elections. The Philippines needs more transparency in campaign finance, not fewer campaign donors.
The surest way to achieve that is to hold candidates fully accountable for their own disclosure obligations while demanding equally persuasive evidence before branding their supporters as criminal conspirators. Otherwise, politicians will commit the mistakes, and everyone else will pay the price.
The author is a professor at the University of the Philippines Los Baños and vice chairman of the board of People’s Television Network Inc. (PTV).
