Marcoleta Camp: Plunder Case Structurally Defective, Politically Suspect

The camp of Sen. Rodante Marcoleta on Friday, July 3, pushed back against the plunder case filed by the Office of the Ombudsman, calling the complaint “structurally defective, legally incompatible and politically suspect.”

The senator’s son, Sagip party-list Rep. Paolo Marcoleta, argued that the P75 million were documented personal donations from friends – with donor’s taxes fully paid – and involved no public funds, government contracts or promised official favors.

He pointed out the legal contradiction of treating the donations as separate acts for bribery while simultaneously aggregating them to meet the plunder threshold without proving a unified criminal scheme.

Furthermore, the Marcoleta camp accused the government of weaponizing the charges to silence the senator’s investigations into flood control anomalies and neutralize him ahead of his role as a senator-judge in the upcoming vice presidential impeachment trial.

“That is not accountability. That is abuse,” the younger Marcoleta said in a statement.

No comment

Senator Marcoleta did not comment on the court indictment.

He appeared in his Net25 program “Sa Ganang Mamamayan” and talked for over an hour about his farm in Tarlac, agricultural policies and the country’s newly attained upper-middle income status.

During the Iglesia ni Cristo rally at the EDSA People Power Monument on Wednesday night, Senator Marcoleta declared that he is prepared to go to jail over what he described as fabricated, politically motivated charges.

“I am ready to go to jail, if I am arrested there’s no problem. If this is the price to pay for defending justice and national interest,” Marcoleta told the crowd.

He also slammed the Office of the Ombudsman for targeting him instead of pursuing actual thieves. He directly accused former speaker Martin Romualdez of actual plunder, claiming that the former House leader was the recipient of suitcases of cash.

Counter-affidavit

Marcoleta had earlier pushed back against the plunder and indirect bribery charges filed against him in a counter-affidavit submitted to the ombudsman on June 5.

He sought the dismissal of the charges, labeling the complaint as “legally insufficient because it does not establish the elements of the offenses charged.”

Marcoleta emphasized that the money came from private individuals, not government coffers.

“There is no question that the allegations in the complaint-affidavit do not constitute that I amassed, accumulated or acquired ill-gotten wealth within the contemplation of the Plunder Law,” Marcoleta’s counter-affidavit stated.

The defense further argued that the accusations “fail to constitute ‘ill-gotten wealth’ within the contemplation of RA (Republic Act) 7080 because the alleged acts do not bear the character of a systematic and economically destructive corruption that the Plunder Law was enacted to punish.”

Marcoleta argued that the issues surrounding his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) and statement of contributions and expenditures  (SOCE) lack the “essential statutory nexus” required to prove bribery or plunder.

He framed the charges as politically motivated, stating the complaint “appears to be calculated or orchestrated in such a way as to distract public attention from, or to undermine, the legislative scrutiny and examination of failures in governance.”

Despite Marcoleta’s defense, the Sandiganbayan last month granted the ombudsman’s request for a precautionary hold-departure order, barring the senator and his three co-defendants from leaving the country while the case proceeds.

Last year, the Comelec terminated its motu proprio investigation into Marcoleta’s undisclosed P75-million contributions, voting 6-0-1 to drop the inquiry due to a lack of evidence proving a criminal election offense.

Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia explained last year that while the probe confirmed Marcoleta failed to comply with Section 109 of the Omnibus Election Code, RA 7166 effectively decriminalized a candidate’s failure to disclose pre-campaign donations in their SOCE.

While the SALN issues fall outside the Comelec’s jurisdiction, Garcia said other non-criminal liabilities remain under review and the agency is not pre-empting any future actions referred by the ombudsman.