Manila court orders the arrest of Martin Romualdez on a P7.44 billion plunder charge

The Sandiganbayan Third Division issued an arrest warrant on Monday for Martin Romualdez, former House speaker and sitting representative for Leyte. The Office of the Ombudsman had filed a plunder case the same day. The charge says Romualdez took about 7.44 billion pesos, roughly $118 million, in commissions, commitment fees and other payments tied to flood-control and infrastructure contracts funded by the General Appropriations Acts for 2022 to 2025. Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla said the warrant was served at Cardinal Santos Medical Center, with Romualdez's lawyer present. Armed officers stood outside the room and in the lobby.

Also named are former Ako Bicol representative Zaldy Co, Romualdez's personal assistant Joselyn Tragua Serenio, and Felicito Cristobal Guevarra, president of Samchan Foreign Exchange Corporation. The court issued a hold-departure order against all four. Co is at large. Plunder in the Philippines is non-bailable once probable cause is found. The Third Division said the warrant means only that the judges, after reading the record, believed there was probable cause. It is not a verdict.

Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla called Romualdez the biggest fish in the flood-control scandal. Prosecutors say the money arrived on at least 15 occasions, often through Co's staff, against a monthly collection quota they put at 2 billion pesos. The cash, they say, was delivered to properties owned by, occupied by, or linked to the accused. Romualdez has denied the scheme. His counsel, Ade Fajardo, said the congressman would face the evidence in court and wanted no special treatment, only the due process promised to every Filipino.

The politics are family politics. Romualdez is a cousin of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and was speaker from 2022 to 2025, the years covered by the charge. Two months ago Marcos used his State of the Nation Address to say he was not the president of his family and not the president of his friends, and that the anti-corruption drive would intensify. The warrant tests that sentence. Flood-control money is a raw nerve in a country that floods every wet season. Ghost projects and thin walls have been documented in audit after audit. This file is larger because of the name on it.

Detention, if the hospital stay ends in a transfer, is expected at the New Quezon City Jail in Payatas, the holding centre designated for flood-control cases. That assignment is itself a political fact. Rank-and-file contractors and mayors already sit in that jail. Putting a former speaker in the same stream is the point the Ombudsman wants the public to see. Whether the evidence survives trial is a separate question. Plunder needs a showing of a series of overt acts and an aggregate above the statutory threshold. The 15 alleged deliveries and the 7.44 billion peso total are how prosecutors meet that test on paper.

Remulla said more cases are coming, including money-laundering counts. Fajardo's line about a fair hearing is the correct legal posture. It does not slow the warrant. For Marcos, the cost of standing aside is a cousin in custody. The cost of intervening would be the sentence he read in July. For voters who waded through last year's floods, the number that will stick is 7.44 billion pesos attached to a surname they already know.