Martin Romualdez Is Right. That Makes It Worse.

04/22/2026

What It Means

Martin Romualdez released a video denying his role in the flood control scandal, but his five claims map exactly how the budget process distributes authority so widely that no single actor can be held accountable.
Each claim exploits a real design feature of the appropriation chain, from the bicam’s opacity to the executive’s control over procurement.
The redirect toward the executive branch is both a legal argument and a political threat, with direct implications for how plunder cases are prosecuted going forward.
The structural question is no longer who is guilty. It is whether the budget process can be reformed so that guilt becomes provable.

Martin Romualdez broke months of silence on April 21 with an 11-minute video statement. The former House Speaker denied being the mastermind of the flood control scandal, named former Senate President Chiz Escudero and former Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co as the real decision-makers, and pointed accountability toward the executive branch.

The video landed on the same day the Ombudsman endorsed an AMLC freeze order request on Martin Romualdez’s assets, blocked his Singapore medical trip, and asked the Sandiganbayan for a hold departure order. The Ombudsman’s special panel has filed a complaint charging him with plunder, direct bribery, and money laundering tied to an alleged ₱56 billion kickback scheme from ghost flood control projects.

Every major outlet covered the video as a political counterpunch. The more useful read is structural. Martin Romualdez made five specific claims. Each one tries to sever the link between his office and the scandal. And each one, tested against the record, reveals something larger than whether he is guilty. It reveals a budget process designed so that accountability is nearly impossible to assign.

Martin Romualdez and the Bicam Membership Claim

Martin Romualdez said he was “not a part of the BiCam and the Small Committee budget deliberations.” This is his most important claim and the one with the weakest footing.

The small committee of the bicameral conference for the 2025 budget had four members: Escudero, Co, Romualdez, and former Senator Grace Poe. Deputy Speaker Ronaldo Puno stated this publicly. He said Romualdez and Poe did not attend several meetings, leaving Co and Escudero to finalize the budget.

Not attending is different from not being part of it. Martin Romualdez was a named member. He also delivered the opening remarks at the first bicam meeting on November 28, 2024. He opened the process. Saying he had no role in it requires the public to accept that the Speaker launched the bicam, appointed Co as Appropriations Committee chair, and then had zero knowledge of what happened next.

The system allows this claim. The Speaker is not required to sit in every session. The small committee has no published transcript. That is the design. And Martin Romualdez is standing in the gap it creates.

The “No Visibility” Defense

Martin Romualdez said he “had no visibility into the specific details of the discussions, including the amendments or insertions.”

Co’s November 2025 video directly contradicts this. Co alleged that Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman relayed instructions to insert ₱100 billion in projects during the bicam, that he confirmed the instructions with Undersecretary Adrian Bersamin, and that he reported them to Romualdez. Co’s account of the Speaker’s response: “What the President wants, he gets.”

These are allegations, not adjudicated facts. But the “no visibility” defense asks the public to believe that the Speaker, who appointed the Appropriations chair and oversaw a chamber that processed ₱1.45 trillion in insertions across three budget cycles, was somehow never briefed on what those insertions contained. The flood control scandal did not happen in one year. It spanned 2023, 2024, and 2025. Romualdez was Speaker for all three.

The “Congress Does Not Build” Deflection

Martin Romualdez said Congress does not build flood control projects, does not conduct procurement, does not inspect completed work, and does not certify whether projects are substandard or ghost.

Technically true. Structurally misleading. Congress does not pour concrete. But the insertion power determines which projects exist, where money goes, and which contractors receive it. The 2025 budget alone contained ₱142.7 billion in bicam insertions, most allocated to DPWH flood control. A PCIJ investigation identified Romualdez as a “pork barrel king” after his district received the highest share of allocable DPWH funds. In Leyte, flood control funding surged from ₱2.17 billion in 2022 to ₱10.06 billion in 2025. Billions in DPWH contracts in his district were awarded to Co’s Sunwest Inc.

The argument that Congress only “appropriates” and does not “implement” treats the insertion as neutral. It is not. The insertion created the ghost projects. Without the appropriation, there is no procurement. Without the procurement, there is no ghost project. Without the ghost project, there is no kickback. Separating the two is exactly how the scandal was designed to function.

The Tacloban Defense Falls Short

Martin Romualdez argued that if he were the mastermind, his own district should have benefited most. He said there is not a single ghost project in Tacloban.

This is a misdirection. The allegation is not that Romualdez built ghost projects in Tacloban. It is that he benefited from the system that created ghost projects elsewhere. Contractor Curlee Discaya testified before the House on September 8, 2025, implicating Romualdez in kickbacks from public works contracts. Security aide Orly Guteza testified at the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee that he regularly delivered luggage filled with cash to Romualdez’s residence while working for Co.

A completed project in Tacloban does not disprove the allegation that money from projects elsewhere reached his door. The flood control scandal moved ₱545.64 billion through 9,855 projects. Over 6,000 of those could not specify what type of structure was built.

The Executive Redirect

The final claim from Martin Romualdez was his sharpest: “Command responsibility is far more logically relevant in the executive branch, where there is actual supervision, operational control, and implementation on the ground.”

This contains a real truth. The executive branch controls DPWH procurement, disbursement, and project inspection. If a project is substandard or nonexistent, the failure sits at the agency level.

But the argument is also a political weapon. Martin Romualdez directed accountability toward his cousin, President Marcos. He said “I will not go quietly, and I will not go alone.” That is not legal reasoning. That is a warning. If the Ombudsman presses plunder charges, Romualdez is signaling he will drag the executive into the case.

Both readings are true at once. The executive does bear command responsibility over execution. The legislature does bear responsibility for creating the appropriation channels that funded the ghost projects. The budget process splits these functions across branches so that neither can be held fully accountable. Martin Romualdez is not inventing this gap. He is standing in it.

The System Martin Romualdez Just Described

Every claim he made exploits a real feature of the Philippine budget process. The bicam operates behind closed doors. The small committee has no published transcript. The Speaker can open the session without sitting in every meeting. The executive controls procurement. Congress controls appropriation. The line between the two is blurred enough that when ₱56 billion in alleged kickbacks surfaces, every actor points at someone else.

The flood control scandal is the largest corruption case in recent Philippine history. The government treats the fiscal damage from this scandal with far less alarm than it applies to proposals like fuel tax suspension. It spans three budget cycles, two chambers, one executive branch, hundreds of legislators, and at least one fugitive arrested in Prague. And the most powerful defense available to the most powerful suspect is: the system is too distributed for anyone to be the mastermind.

He is probably right about that. And that is the problem.

The question is whether the budget process will be reformed so the next Speaker cannot make the same argument. OpenBicam, the abolition of the small committee, and full transparency over unprogrammed appropriations are not abstract proposals. They are the structural responses to the exact defense Martin Romualdez just made.

If those reforms do not happen, the flood control scandal will be remembered not as the case that broke the system, but as the case that proved the system was never meant to be broken.