THE Sandiganbayan Third Division has granted bail to former senator Ramon Bong Revilla Jr., ruling that the prosecution failed to establish strong evidence of his guilt in the P92.8-million ghost flood-control case out of Pandi, Bulacan. The resolution, promulgated on July 31, allowed Revilla’s provisional release on a P1-million cash bond — a modest sum relative to both his personal wealth and the scale of the anomaly he stands accused of.
(Trivia: Born Jose Maria M. Bautista, he legally changed his registered family name to “Bong Revilla” via a Cavite RTC Branch 19 decision approved on Oct. 19, 2009. Legally, “Bautista” is his middle name and “Bong Revilla” is his surname — “Ramon” and “Jr.” are his first name/suffix. The change was strategic: It moved him to the top of the alphabetical Senate ballot ahead of the 2010 automated elections, and Comelec Second Division upheld it against a disqualification challenge).
What should trouble the public is not merely that bail was granted. Bail, properly weighed, is a constitutional right even in nonbailable offenses where the evidence of guilt is not strong. What should trouble the public is the justices’ vote that got him there — and what it confirms about long-standing rumors concerning the anti-graft court itself.
The vote was two to one. Associate Justices Ronald Moreno and Fritz Bryn Anthony de los Santos joined to grant Revilla’s petition — de los Santos, in fact, penned the questionable resolution. Third Division chairman Justice Karl Miranda dissented, citing that the evidence on record showed Bong Revilla had a hand in facilitating the inclusion of the Pandi project in the General Appropriations Act. In an anti-graft court that has for years been the subject of quiet allegations that it is not as graft-free as its name demands, Miranda’s dissent stands out. It is the position of a magistrate willing to rule against a politically powerful accused, on the strength of the record alone, regardless of who is sitting across the courtroom from him.
Sandiganbayan not graft-free?
I am not the only one asking questions. Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla himself, in a radio interview, said it appeared that someone had “worked” — “tinrabaho” was his exact word — the resolution that secured Revilla’s bail. His own prosecutors have since filed a motion asking the Third Division to reconsider its ruling. De los Santos and Moreno, for their part, said they took no offense at the Ombudsman’s remarks. But an Ombudsman publicly musing, on air, that a bail resolution in a P92.8-million malversation case may have been “worked” is not a small thing. It is the state’s own anti-corruption prosecutor giving voice, on the record, to the same suspicion that has followed the Sandiganbayan’s Third Division for years. Whether or not Remulla’s insinuation holds up, the fact that it needed to be said at all by the Ombudsman, tells you how far this court’s credibility has already eroded.
I do not make that observation lightly, or from a distance. Years before the current composition took its present shape, I had a case pending before that same Third Division. In the course of that litigation, we were approached and told that an acquittal for the accused could be arranged — for P7 million. I am not naming names in this column, but I will say this plainly — if a case worth pursuing can be quietly priced, then the “anti-graft court” is not living up to the only reason it exists.
This is where Bong Revilla’s case and my own observations intersect. Both point to the same rot — a growing public sense that outcomes at the Sandiganbayan (and in Philippine courts more broadly) are not purely a function of evidence and law, but of who can afford to make a case go away, and who cannot.
The rich, the politically connected and the famous experience a version of Philippine justice that ordinary litigants never see: bail petitions expedited, technical motions entertained at length, media statements from their counsels emphasizing “trust in the system” the moment a favorable ruling drops. Meanwhile, an ordinary accused — a laborer, a small vendor, a rank-and-file employee — often sits in a congested jail for months awaiting arraignment, represented by an overworked public attorney, with no columnist to write on their behalf, and no media camera crew waiting outside the courtroom. The law on paper is the same for both. The law in practice is not.
I am not arguing against Bong Revilla’s constitutional right to bail, nor making accusations that Associate Justices Moreno and de los Santos acted with anything other than their reading of the evidence — that judgment is for the appellate process, and for history, to make. It is an argument that when a court operating under a name that promises the eradication of graft is itself dogged by persistent rumors of graft, the burden of proof runs the other way. The institution owes the public transparency, not the benefit of the doubt.
Judicial Integrity Office should act
In March 2025, the Supreme Court reorganized what used to be the five-member Judicial Integrity Board into a leaner Judicial Integrity Office, headed by a single judicial integrity officer appointed by the court itself. That office’s core function is to conduct fact-finding investigations, on its own initiative if necessary, and to recommend the appropriate penalties or clemency against justices and judges — a mandate that expressly covers the Sandiganbayan. It does not need to wait for a complainant to walk through its doors. Given how long these rumors about the Sandiganbayan have circulated, and given what I have personally known, I believe that authority should now be exercised. An anti-graft court that will not police its own is a perversion of the very justice it was created to protect.
Factual sources: Philstar.com, Rappler, Philippine Daily Inquirer (all July 31, 2026), Manila Bulletin (July 31-Aug. 1, 2026), GMA News Online (October 2010), Supreme Court of the Philippines (a.m. 23-12-05-SC), Sandiganbayan (Resolution, E-SB-26-CRM-0002, July 31, 2026).
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