[Vantage Point] The fire Marcos started, and the signature at the bottom
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. deserves one presumption that critics have been reluctant to grant him: a president knowingly profiting from the flood-control racket would have taken an extraordinary risk when he publicly set the scandal ablaze.
During his 2025 State of the Nation Address, Marcos ordered officials to expose failed, substandard and possibly fictitious flood-control projects. “Mahiya naman kayo sa mga kabahayan nating naanod o nalubog sa mga pagbaha,” (“Have you no shame for our countrymen whose homes were swept away or submerged by the floods?”) he thundered, before rebuking those who would leave the resulting debts for Filipino children to pay.
A year later, the fire reached his family. Marcos told the nation that the expected prosecution of his cousin, former House speaker Martin Romualdez, pains him but the investigation must proceed. He declared, “Hindi ako ang Pangulo ng aking pamilya. Hindi ako ang Pangulo ng aking mga kaibigan. Ako ang Pangulo ng Pilipinas.” (“I am not the President of my family. I am not the President of my friends. I am the President of the Philippines.”)
Romualdez answered: “Masakit man ito sa aming pamilya, iginagalang ko ang naging pahayag ng Pangulo. Hindi ako kailanman humingi ng pabor o espesyal na pagtrato. Sang-ayon ako na gawin natin ang tama.” (“Although this is painful for our family, I respect the President’s statement. I have never asked anyone for favors or special treatment. I agree that we must do what is right.”) He added that due process should be followed, the evidence allowed to speak, and his innocence tested fairly.
That exchange complicates the easy narrative that Marcos and Romualdez are staging a family drama to protect themselves. The 104-page supplemental complaint filed before the Ombudsman against Romualdez is hardly cosmetic. It accuses him and former Ako Bicol representative Zaldy Co of conspiring to amass approximately P56 billion between 2022 and 2025 through alleged kickbacks, bribery, graft, and money laundering connected with government projects. (READ: [Rappler’s Best] Mahiya naman kayo)
Investigators cite public works officials, security personnel, and couriers who allegedly transported cash in suitcases, together with corporations and intermediaries supposedly used to transfer or conceal assets. (READ: Martin Romualdez properties: Where and how much?)
Still, accusation must not be confused with conviction. The complaint is for preliminary investigation. Romualdez may submit counter-affidavits, challenge witnesses, and contest the documents.
If the Ombudsman finds probable cause, it may file criminal information before the proper court. Only then may a judge independently determine whether probable cause exists to issue a warrant of arrest. Marcos may support the process, but neither he nor the Ombudsman can guarantee its outcome.
Powerful objection
Critics nevertheless raise a powerful objection: every national budget from which the alleged racket drew nourishment carried Marcos’s signature. The budget begins inside the executive branch through the National Expenditure Program, passes through Congress, and returns to Malacañang for item approval or veto.
Once enacted, executive agencies control releases, bidding, implementation, and inspection. Politically, Marcos owns those budgets. A President who claims credit for classrooms, bridges, and hospitals financed by the General Appropriations Act (GAA) cannot become a spectator when appropriations turn out to be fictitious, overpriced, or corrupted.
But political responsibility is not synonymous with criminal guilt. A presidential signature on a multitrillion-peso budget does not prove that Marcos knew a flood-control project was fictitious, approved a kickback, protected its collectors, or received proceeds.
No President personally inspects thousands of drainage systems, seawalls, and river projects before signing the GAA. Appropriation merely authorizes expenditure; it does not establish participation in a conspiracy.
Here, Marcos deserves the benefit of the doubt. His decision to expose the anomalies appears inconsistent with guilt. If he knew that a genuine investigation would lead back to him, why invite the public, Congress, auditors, and law-enforcement agencies to dig deeper into the projects?
Why create the political conditions that forced Romualdez from the speakership and placed his cousin before the Ombudsman? A conspirator normally suppresses records, protects participants, and redirects scrutiny. Marcos did the opposite, at least publicly.
This is persuasive evidence of good faith, but not conclusive. Politicians sometimes launch controlled investigations, believing they can contain the damage, sacrifice participants, or direct attention away from themselves.
Marcos may also have underestimated the scheme or assumed the trail would stop below Malacañang. The fire he started could have escaped its intended perimeter. These are possibilities, not proof, and fairness requires that suspicion should not become culpability merely because critics distrust him.
Reasonable doubt
The test must provide the evidence. Marcos’s defense weakens if project lists originated from presidential offices; if close aides transmitted instructions or received collections; if warnings reached him before budget approval or fund release; or if financial records connect proceeds to him, his family or controlled entities.
Conversely, his defense strengthens if anomalous items can be traced to congressional alterations, rogue officials, and contractors acting without his knowledge, and if he gives investigators complete, continuing access to records even when the trail reaches allies.
The Ombudsman must therefore reconstruct the scheme project by project: who proposed each appropriation, who altered it, which contractor benefited, what percentage was demanded, who collected the cash, and where did the fund go?
Suitcase testimony can explain the mechanics, but bank records, property purchases, foreign-exchange transactions, corporate ownership, and communications must supply corroboration. (READ: [Inside the Newsroom] Properties, patterns keep leading back to Martin Romualdez)
The fairest judgment is that Marcos stands inside the chain of political accountability, but has not been shown to stand inside the criminal conspiracy.
Although his signatures warrant scrutiny, his decision to trigger the investigation casts reasonable doubt on his guilt.
The pivotal issue shifts from determining who started the fire, but whether the President will allow it to burn wherever the evidence leads, even if it implicates Romualdez or ultimately consumes Malacañang.
I welcome your views on these and other issues where decisions made in power shape the country’s economic future.
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