Philippines: Marcos Cousin Martin Romualdez Charged With Plunder Over Flood Control Scandal

(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) The Philippine Ombudsman has filed plunder charges against the cousin of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and former House of Representatives (HOR) Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez at the country's anti-corruption court on Monday, but an arrest warrant has not yet been issued.

Romualdez is the first lawmaker close to and allied with Marcos to be charged in the court in connection with the alleged multi-billion-peso flood control kickbacks rocking the Philippine government.

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The Tacloban City representative is charged along with former HOR Appropriations Committee chairperson Elizaldy Co, now a fugitive in Europe.

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Philippine Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla confirmed to reporters the filing of charges against the former fourth-highest official of the country. Assistant Ombudsman Mico Clavano, meanwhile, said the case was assigned to Sandiganbayan's 3rd Division, which is expected to review the case and decide on issuing an arrest warrant.

In the Philippines, plunder is a serious criminal offense committed when a public officer criminally accumulates ill-gotten wealth of at least P50 million (Dh3 million). It is a non-bailable offense in the Philippines.

Who is Romualdez?

A scion and a member of a political dynasty, Romualdez is a third-generation politician of a family that has ruled the province of Leyte in the east-central Philippines for nearly three quarters of a century.

He is a nephew of former governor, representative and first lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos, making him a cousin of the current Philippine president. He is currently the First District Representative of Tacloban City.

Their family includes governors, lawmakers, ambassadors, and other high government officials. The lawyer and reported billionaire has business interests in mining and newspaper publishing.

He was campaign manager for the successful Marcos-Sara Duterte ticket in the 2022 presidential elections, becoming HOR speaker on the strength of his familial relation to the president. Pundits claimed he grabbed the position over presumptive speaker and former Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, which started the raging Marcos-Duterte rift in Philippine politics.

What was his alleged role in the flood control scandal?

Romualdez is a central figure and alleged mastermind in the multi-billion-peso flood control corruption scandal, Remulla publicly said. Along with Co, Romualdez allegedly orchestrated the massive diversion of funds meant for public flood control and mitigation infrastructure from mid-2022 to 2025, when he was forced to give up his speakership as the scandal blew up.

Calls for Romualdez's head intensified after Co, already in hiding in Europe, revealed irregular insertions in the 2023 to 2025 national budgets that eventually found their way to the cousins' (Marcos Jr. and Romualdez) pockets and were worth billions of pesos.

So-called whistleblowers also testified in Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearings that they had delivered bundles of cash worth hundreds of millions of pesos to various properties allegedly owned by Romualdez. Several of the whistleblowers have since recanted their revelations, however.

Former government engineers also alleged that Romualdez pocketed shares and cutbacks from a rigged system of infrastructure allocations, budget insertions, and favored contractors within the Department of Public Works and Highways.

The lawmaker has consistently denied guilt but has yet to give details of his legal defense. He also recently asked the Ombudsman to be fair in its prosecution of the case against him.

What charging Marcos' cousin means

The filing of a major criminal offense against a Romualdez under a Marcos government is the first-ever since 1965, when Ferdinand Marcos Sr became president. Various Romualdezes became powerful government officials and even richer businessmen during the 21 years of the Marcos dictatorship through cronyism, popular accounts maintain.

The Corazon Aquino government sequestered major corporate shares, bank funds, and properties belonging to Ferdinand Martin's late father, Ambassador Benjamin "Kokoy" Romualdez, through the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), starting in 1986.

The Sandiganbayan and the Supreme Court eventually ordered the release and return of these long-sequestered assets to Benjamin's heirs, including Ferdinand Martin, after decades of legal battles.

Through political ups and downs, the Marcoses and the Romualdezes have shown a united front, until the current corruption scandal, in which a Marcos president has allowed a corruption case to be filed against a Romualdez.

But is Romualdez the real mastermind?

Not according to a colleague in the HOR.

Kabataan Youth Party Representative Renee Co said the filing of plunder charges against the former speaker is not the end goal of the quest for accountability in the notoriously corrupt Philippine government.

"Martin Romualdez is just the tip of the iceberg. He is not the real 'big fish,'" Co (no relation to Elizaldy Co) said.

"We will let justice and due process take their course, but the executive department cannot escape accountability. Cabinet members involved in corruption must also be charged. Even Marcos Jr. must also face justice,” the youth representative said.

She also stated that Marcos Jr. is only paying lip service to weeding out corruption in his government as the president still included pork barrel funds in his proposed 2027 national budget.“Marcos wants billions in flood control funds back. It's back to a normal corruption budget again despite the scandal,” Co concluded.

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