Former president and Pampanga 2nd District Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said she would reject any attempt to remove Ombudsman Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla, breaking her silence after an online post claimed she was behind a plot to unseat him.
“Ombudsman Remulla was a CESO Assistant Secretary in President Estrada’s office when EDSA Dos happened. Rather than cling to his Civil Service security of tenure, he graciously vacated his post to give me a free hand in organizing Malacañang,” Arroyo said in a statement posted Wednesday on her Facebook page.
She went further on the question of removal. “Thus, if an impeachment resolution is filed in the House against him, I will vote against it,” she said.
The statement followed a social media post that named Arroyo as a figure behind a supposed effort to impeach the Ombudsman. Her legal counsel, Joseph Frianeza, told House reporters that the former president “unequivocally denies knowledge or involvement” in any planned complaint against Remulla, according to the Manila Bulletin. Frianeza said the material originated from a Facebook blogger whose identity could not be verified, and described the page that carried it as containing fabricated content.
Remulla is one of the officials who can be removed only through impeachment. Under Article XI, Section 2 of the 1987 Constitution, the Ombudsman sits alongside the President, Vice President, members of the Supreme Court, and members of the Constitutional Commissions as officers subject to the process, which begins in the House of Representatives and is tried in the Senate.
Arroyo’s reference to EDSA Dos points to the January 2001 uprising that removed President Joseph Estrada and installed her, then vice president, in Malacañang. Her account casts Remulla’s early departure from a post in the Estrada administration as an act that eased her transition into the presidency, a tenure that ran from 2001 to 2010.
The Ombudsman’s office has recently figured in separate proceedings tied to Vice President Sara Duterte, whose impeachment case is being heard in the Senate. Arroyo, long regarded as a Duterte ally, was among the lawmakers recorded as not participating when the House voted in 2026 to impeach the Vice President.
