The Sandiganbayan’s Seventh Division has issued a precautionary hold departure order against Senator Rodante Marcoleta, former congressman Mike Defensor, and two businessmen, restricting them from traveling abroad while they face plunder and bribery charges linked to P75 million in undisclosed campaign contributions.
The anti-graft court granted the Office of the Ombudsman’s request following an ex-parte hearing, as investigators continue their preliminary inquiry into allegations of plunder, indirect bribery, and violations of Presidential Decree No. 46 — which governs the receiving of gifts by public officials.
The case traces its origins to a Comelec probe into Marcoleta’s statement of contributions and expenditures after the senator initially declared no campaign donations. He later admitted, during the commission’s inquiry, to receiving three separate contributions in January 2025 totalling P75 million — donated by Defensor (P30 million), and businessmen Joseph Espiritu (P25 million) and Aristotle Viray (P20 million) on January 6, 8, and 9 of that year. Marcoleta finished sixth in the 2025 senatorial race.
Investigators noted that the P75 million was absent not only from his SOCE but also from his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth filed with the Senate as of June 30, 2025 — a pattern ombudsman officials described as Marcoleta having “unlawfully enriched himself at the expense of the public.”
Maria Melinda Mananghaya-Henson, director of the Field Investigation Bureau-Luzon, argued before the Sandiganbayan that all four respondents posed flight risks. She cited Marcoleta’s political influence, financial capacity to sustain himself abroad, and what she described as a “tendency to conceal illegality and evade liability.” The other three respondents, she said, were equally at risk of fleeing given their alleged roles as co-conspirators and their own financial resources.
Henson further noted that Marcoleta was a sitting congressman at the time the donations were received and that P75 million was grossly disproportionate to his official income — estimating it would take a congressman roughly 20 years to earn that amount through salary alone. She added that in his verified position paper, Marcoleta did not identify any relationship with the three donors, who were each aware of his status as a public official. Even framing the contributions as acts of friendship, she argued, could not justify transfers of such magnitude, calling it “outside the ordinary act of generosity.”
Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla pushed back against Marcoleta’s characterisation of the complaints as politically motivated. “I do not want to get into the political mix of it. This is very clear. All of the evidences came from him, everything he said before the Comelec. These were not invented. You saw the footages on Net25 and on other stations where he said he even spent the money. He claimed that he spent the money and there was seemingly no hesitation on what he did,” Remulla said.
Comelec Chairman George Garcia, in a separate interview, clarified that not all of the allegations against Marcoleta fall within the commission’s jurisdiction as election offenses. He explained that Republic Act 7166 had decriminalised certain non-disclosure violations in campaign finance filings, which affected how some complaints were resolved. Garcia was careful to stress, however, that this did not constitute full exoneration. “At that time, Comelec initiated its own investigation based on established facts and available information,” he said, adding that the poll body had acted motu proprio given the gravity of the disclosures.
Garcia noted that other legal avenues — including perjury charges and violations of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act — remain available to prosecutors and the Ombudsman, independent of Comelec’s findings.
