(UPDATE) THE spokesman of former speaker Martin Romualdez said they will question the Precautionary Hold Departure Order issued to him by the Sandiganbayan.
The anti-graft court issued the order on Wednesday, after the Office of the Ombudsman said it found probable cause that Romualdez might leave the country to evade arrest.
Romualdez is being investigated for allegations of plunder, direct bribery and malversation in relation to the flood control scandal.
In a statement, lawyer Ade Fajardo said. Romualdez “is in the Philippines and has not left the country. Any report or insinuation that he has fled is false and irresponsible.”
Fajardo said Romualdez is seeking and securing necessary travel authority, and coordinated in good faith with the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Immigration.
Romualdez was looking for a “brief, long-overdue four-day medical checkup with his attending physician in Singapore,” after his angioplasty surgery, she continued. “This is fully consistent with his conduct from the very beginning — one of cooperation, transparency and respect for legal processes. Unfortunately, this legitimate act has been twisted to create a prejudicial narrative that he intended to flee.”
The congressman from Leyte “remains committed to facing these allegations squarely,” Fajardo said.
Partido Demokratiko Pilipino deputy national spokesman Ferdinand Topacio on Friday appealed to Romualdez to “redeem himself and his family’s legacy” by exposing everything he knows about the corruption in government, including unconstitutional insertions in the General Appropriations Act and the flood control scandal.
“We are aware that such revelations may involve close members of his family, including the President, and that he may be holding back information to protect certain personalities, but his recent warnings that he will spill the beans, as it were, should charges against him be politicized and he become the ‘fall guy’, indicates that Romualdez knows many things that will help unravel the Gordian knot regarding these massive anomalies,” Topacio said.
On Thursday, Malacañang said the President does not feel alluded to by Romualdez’s remarks.
Palace Press Officer Claire Castro told reporters it was Marcos himself who ordered an investigation into anomalous flood control projects.
“Whatever defense will be made against the possible accusations against former Speaker Romualdez, that is his defense,” Castro said. “And if he is saying that the executive has command responsibility, that is precisely why the President gave orders: the matter was not ignored, there was no cover-up, and he initiated an investigation. So that if there are any anomalies and whoever should be held accountable, they must indeed be held accountable.”
Romualdez, a cousin and a close ally of the President, denied any role in the supposedly corruption-tainted 2025 national budget, saying there was “no evidence that proves that he committed plunder, conspiracy to commit plunder, or any similar offense that the Ombudsman may be contemplating against me.”
He said that if anyone bears command responsibility over the budget, it would be the Executve branch.
“If corruption were to occur on the scale alleged in recent months, it is clear that it would not happen at the level of general legislative approval alone. It happens at the level of execution of the General Appropriations Act,” Romualdez said in a video message.
“That is why command responsibility is more logically attributed to the Executive branch, where there is actual supervision, operational control and on-the-ground implementation, rather than to a collegial legislative body whose constitutional role is deliberation and appropriation,” he said.
Romualdez did not name Marcos, and pointed instead at former Senate president Francis Escudero and former House appropriations committee chairman Elizaldy “Zaldy” Co.
Castro said that when the President found out about the anomalous flood control projects in 2025, “he himself ordered the investigation. He created an independent investigating body to ensure that there will be no cover-up, especially about the actions and inactions of the DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways).”
Castro said some DPWH officials, including former Public Works secretary Manuel Bonoan, have been charged in court.
She refused to characterize the relationship between Marcos and Romualdez, following the latter’s resignation as speaker in September last year.
