Zero

Brilliant – the gambit of Ombudsman Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla.  

Thursday morning (Oct. 23), he gave an extended interview with Karen Davila on ANC. He disclosed he was drafting a letter to Senate President Tito Sotto asking the Senate to implement Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales’ dismissal of Senator Joel Villanueva.  On Nov. 14, 2016, Morales had ordered Villanueva’s dismissal from public service for “grave misconduct, serious dishonesty and conduct prejudicial to the interest of the service” over alleged misuse of his P10-million PDAF.

Thursday afternoon, Villanueva disclosed he had actually been cleared, by Morales’ successor, Samuel Martires.  “To my surprise, when I got to the office, I was confronted with a decision signed by former ombudsman (Samuel) Martires dated July 2019,” Ombudsman Remulla told reporters.

Martires reversed Carpio Morales’ 2016 decision. But nobody knew about the reversal, until late Thursday. The implication: Joel Villanueva and the unlamented Martires had a secret deal.

Ordinarily, if you are cleared or acquitted of a crime, especially graft or thievery, you announce it to the whole world. Hallelujah! Instead, you keep it a secret. For six years! Why?

By telegraphing his intention to write a letter to SP Sotto, Remulla was able to unearth a pact with the devil. 

Result: Joel Villanueva seems cleared, for now. But the Bible-quoting senator struts into the Senate hall with a cloud of doubt over his head. He is what Pinoys would call “bahag ang buntot” – he cannot face the truth (hindi makaharap sa problema or kaharap).

By his gambit, Remulla in effect indicted both Martires and Villanueva before the court of public opinion. 

Who believes Martires? The worst ombudsman; zero credibility. Who believes Villanueva? By now, in the eyes of an angry public, a recidivist. A repeat offender. 

Villanueva was implicated by dismissed DPWH district engineer Henry Alcantara when he testified before the Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearing in September 2025. In 2022, Villanueva asked for a multi-purpose building costing P1.5 billion but was only given P600 million from flood control funds in the unprogrammed funds.

Villanueva was first entangled in the pork barrel scam of 2016, called the Napoles PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund) scandal. PDAF was a P10-billion lump-sum discretionary fund granted congressmen for priority projects. But the money was laundered into private pockets, stolen. A party-list congressman (2002-2010), Villanueva received a P10-million PDAF but the money went to a non-existent project, then Ombudsman Morales found out.

Ombudsman Martires reversed Morales’ decision on two grounds – Villanueva’s signatures were forged, allegedly, and the P10 million was credited to the wrong party-list.  

C’mon. Carpio-Morales (ombudsman from 2011-2018), 84, is not stupid nor incompetent. A UP law graduate, she spent eight years at the Court of Appeals (1994-2002) and nine years at the Supreme Court (2002-2011) before President Noynoy Aquino named her ombudsman. She won the Magsaysay Award for being a “fearless and indefatigable ombudsman whose integrity and dignity restored the people’s faith in the rule of law.”

Martires became a judge in July 2000, in Agoo, La Union. In 2002, a fellow La Union judge filed an administrative complaint against Martires for “gross ignorance of the law, incompetence, abuse of authority and dereliction of duty.” Martires allegedly refused to issue a warrant of arrest for a murder suspect despite the presence of evidence and the urgings of the prosecution. The complaint was dismissed for lack of merit.

Meanwhile, the Senate wants to make the Independent Commission for Infrastructure a permanent structure – to fight graft.

SP Sotto and Senators Erwin Tulfo and Risa Hontiveros filed Senate Bill 1215 creating a five-person Independent People’s Commission to investigate anomalies in all government infrastructure projects. “IPC will be a permanent non-partisan government agency focused on investigating graft and anomalies in infrastructure projects – in public works, education, agriculture, flood control, disaster resilience,” explained Sen. Kiko Pangilinan, chair of the Senate committee on justice and human rights. The bill in effect strengthens the present Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI).

The bill grants ICI the power not just to investigate but also to prosecute cases, offer witness protection, freeze assets, put suspects under preventive suspension and impose hold departure orders, explains SP Sotto. 

Pangilinan said the bill was prompted by the news that the biggest of the corrupt contractors, the spouses Curlee and Sarah Discaya (they bagged P207 billion of DPWH contracts and P180-billion cash went to their bank accounts), called a presscon to announce they would not cooperate with the ICI. They thumbed their noses at ICI, heckling it as toothless.

“The Discayas are hustlers,” harrumphed Ombudsman Remulla.

“We need this body (IPC) because of the unrest that we feel in our midst and the need to restore the faith of our people in our democratic system of government,” former Senate president and justice secretary Franklin Drilon told the Senate committee.

Before the committee, ICI chair Andy Reyes complained that ICI during its first month had only three lawyers attending to hundreds, if not thousands, of flood control scam cases. Reyes asked that ICI be given the power to check bank accounts and scan text messages of culprits. ICI commissioner Babes Singson wants ICI commissioners to be immune from suits.

“There is nothing in the Senate bill that protects the members of the Commission from harassment suits, especially after their term of office expires,” notes former Chief Justice Reynato Puno. He also asks that the commission be empowered to “subpoena bank records, tax returns, SALNs, data from the AMLC and, especially, if they belong to such personalities as the president, the members of Congress or the justices of the Supreme Court and other independent bodies.” And lower courts, except the Supreme Court, should be prohibited from issuing TROs on the ICI.

Over P1 trillion of the DPWH was stolen disguised as flood control money, the biggest syndicated stealing ever. Jailed so far: Zero.