For the first time since the case reached the anti-graft court, the Sandiganbayan Third Division on Monday viewed the televised statements of Sen. Rodante Marcoleta that prosecutors are using to anchor a plunder complaint against him.
The senator stands accused alongside three co-defendants: former Rep. Mike Defensor and businessmen Joseph Espiritu and Aristotle Viray. Prosecutors from the Office of the Ombudsman allege that the trio funneled P75 million in campaign money to Marcoleta during his tenure as a party-list representative, and that the senator left the sum out of his required financial and campaign filings. Each of the four defendants has entered a not-guilty plea.
The recording dates to Marcoleta’s November 8, 2025 broadcast, in which he acknowledged accepting contributions from associates who wanted to stay anonymous. Speaking in Filipino, he said: “My friends really gave me contributions. Do you know what their only request was? Just one: ‘Please accept our help’ — I was a congressman then — ‘Cong, we believe you deserve to reach the Senate, please accept this amount.’ There were many of them. They only had one request of me: that I would not disclose their identities.”
Prosecutor Joshua Tan sought to have the defense concede that “it is Sen. Marcoleta depicted [in the video], and it was not spliced.” Lawyers for all four accused agreed the man on screen was indeed the senator.
Playing the clip came at Tan’s request during the bail proceedings, and the court granted it. The screening preceded scheduled testimony from Maria Melinda Mananghaya-Henson of the Ombudsman’s Field Investigation Bureau, whose evaluation of the footage formed the substance of her account.
That testimony drew a challenge from Lawrence Arroyo, counsel for Defensor and Espiritu, who moved to block the prosecution’s offer. Arroyo contended that since jurisdiction over the matter now rests with the Sandiganbayan, the witness’s evaluation no longer carried weight. He described the assessment as “inadmissible,” arguing the question had passed into the “exclusive province of this honorable court.” Presiding over the division, Associate Justice Karl Miranda permitted her to proceed regardless.
Miranda ultimately halted the session partway through, citing the extended cross-examination still ahead. Mananghaya-Henson is set to return to the stand on Thursday, September 17.
