Those skeptical about the arrest of former House speaker Martin Romualdez have reasons to be even more doubtful following the Supreme Court’s decision to acquit Imelda Marcos.
Romualdez, said to be the ringleader of the massive, shameless and grotesque looting of billions in flood control funds, was arrested on Sept. 7.
Three days later, the SC made public its decision acquitting the former first lady on graft charges for which she was convicted by a lower court in 2018.
One cannot blame the skeptics for thinking that Romualdez’s arrest may have been just a ploy to satisfy the public and cushion the possible backlash of the SC’s jaw-dropping acquittal of the presidential mother whose name has become synonymous with extravagance and opulence. “Imeldific,” though not listed in mainstream dictionaries, is in every Filipino’s vocabulary.
Initially, conspiracy theories going around say Romualdez’s arrest was really to prepare the public for the looming conviction of Vice President Sara Duterte, who is currently being tried by the Senate acting as an impeachment court. Romualdez’s arrest is supposed to prove the Marcos administration is not guilty of selective justice, as the Duterte camp has alleged.
But it may have also been to quell public anger following Imelda’s acquittal.
The cases stemmed from allegations that Imelda, while serving as governor of Metro Manila and holding other government positions during the administration of her husband, president Ferdinand Marcos Sr., maintained financial interests in several private foundations based in Switzerland. The SC found inadmissible as evidence the Swiss documents that were the main basis of the prosecution’s allegation that Marcos had a financial and pecuniary interest in the foundations. (The STAR, Sept. 10, 2026)
History, they say, is written by the victors. The Marcoses are proving that to be true, at least for now.
Perhaps, the Marcos administration’s idea of vindicating the Marcos name is not really to accomplish as much as possible for the good of the Filipino people but to ensure that all charges against them are dismissed.
It’s almost surreal how such massive presidential plunder, a term coined by the late Jovito Salonga, the first chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, is now ending in numerous acquittals in recent years.
But this shouldn’t be the case.
The Marcoses’ ill-gotten wealth has been intertwined with our country’s story for more than five decades now.
In many ways, it’s the reason for many of our society’s ills that continue to plague us to this day – stark income inequality, piles of government debt, high power costs, numerous taxes and so on.
A looting of such grand amount, estimated at $5 billion to $10 billion, had definitely set back our country by generations.
It wasn’t simply about billions stolen but about a system of cronyism that had robbed ordinary Filipinos of the right to equal opportunities and self-actualization.
Like the Holocaust
Here is an excerpt from Salonga’s book on the Marcoses’ ill-gotten wealth, “Presidential Plunder.”
“Like the Holocaust of Hitler’s concentration camps and gas chambers which led to the extermination of six million Jews, the saga of the Marcos stolen wealth is apparently without end. Nor, for that matter, the gross violations of human rights committed during martial rule when thousands of people were tortured, summarily executed or ‘salvaged’ by the Marcos military diehards, purportedly in the name of national security.”
Salonga’s book was printed in 2000.
Twenty-six years later, the saga is seeing some ending – one acquittal after another. But this isn’t the ending the Filipino people deserve.
Only in the Philippines can a family and its cronies steal and plunder, get away with it and even get back into power decades later.
Learning loss
At the rate things are going, we are in the midst of a learning emergency.
Classes have been severely disrupted by habagat.
Back in the day, classes were only suspended when the signal was number 3.
Now, we have a new reality – classes are suspended almost every day. LGUs assume that students can learn as much online or via asynchronous classes. They don’t.
There must be a better way of adjusting to our new reality of stronger and longer monsoon seasons. Otherwise, we are depriving our students of much-needed face-to-face time in the classrooms.
Ernan Paragas, former dean of the UP College of Media and Communication and also my professor during my college days, said students should have amihan and habagat uniforms.
For habagat, this means shorts, Wellington boots (bota) or slippers and a raincoat. At the very least, all schools should have provisions to wash and dry students’ feet, he said.
He also suggests localized suspensions.
“The problem is global and climate will be even more severe. We should of course invest in better civil works and meteorology, but things are changing and we need to start changing as well,” he said.
Perhaps, it’s also time to consider reverting to the old school calendar.
If classes begin in June, the first months of the school year fall during the latter part of the dry season and the transition into the rainy season. More importantly, the long school break falls during April and May, when temperatures are extremely high.
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Email: eyesgonzales@gmail.com. Follow her on X @eyesgonzales. Column archives at EyesWideOpen on FB.