MANILA – The Office of the Ombudsman has been urged to preventively suspend House of Representatives Speaker Ferdinand “Martin” Romualdez and three others in relation to the alleged P241-billion insertions in the 2025 national budget.
Aside from Romualdez, also listed in the petition submitted by Davao del Norte 1st District’s Cong. Pantaleon Alvarez and Citizens Crime Watch are House Majority Leader Mannix Dalipe, Cong. Zaldy Co, and Cong. Stella Quimbo.
The petitioners asserted that these officials should be suspended to prevent any influence in the ongoing investigation.
They also argue that issues of dishonesty, oppression, and grave misconduct provide sufficient grounds for the suspension of the accused individuals.
Alvarez emphasized that this petition differs from their previous submission to the anti-graft body and could be prioritized to facilitate a thorough investigation.
The group had already filed 12 counts of falsification of legislative documents against the aforementioned House officials due to alleged insertions in the P241-billion national budget for 2025.
Former president Rodrigo Duterte and Davao City 3rd District’s Cong. Isidro Ungab claimed that there were alleged “blank items” in the 2025 budget, to which President Marcos responded by labeling them as liars.
Quimbo, the acting chairperson of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, confirmed the existence of blank items in the bicameral report on the P6.325-trillion national budget for 2025, but quickly clarified that funding for these items had been identified prior to the report’s signing.
Aside from Alvarez’s group’s petitions, senatorial aspirant Vic Rodriguez, Ungab, and others have petitioned the Supreme Court to declare the 2025 national budget unconstitutional, citing alleged irregularities and the purported blank items in the bicameral conference committee report./PN
