A P75-million donation that Senator Rodante Marcoleta accepted during his stint as a Sagip party-list congressman continues to generate legal exposure on two fronts, with the lawmaker settling P90,000 in bail Thursday to answer for alleged breaches of the country’s anti-gift statute.
The payment covered three separate cases lodged under Presidential Decree 46, each raffled to a different Sandiganbayan bench — the Fourth, Sixth, and First Divisions. That decree bars government officials from taking any gift, favor, or benefit, whether handed over openly or through intermediaries, while carrying out their duties.
Manila Bulletin reported that the P90,000 total broke down into P30,000 for each of the three counts, and that the money was posted so Marcoleta could secure a one-day medical furlough. The Sandiganbayan Third Division cleared him to visit The Medical City in Pasig on September 7 for examinations tied to prostate enlargement, hypertension, and elevated cholesterol.
Marcoleta is not the only one named in the anti-gift complaints. Prosecutors listed former Anakalusugan Rep. Michael Defensor alongside businessmen Joseph Espiritu and Aristotle Viray, all accused in connection with the same P75-million sum.
The larger jeopardy comes from a plunder charge over the same money, which the Ombudsman argues amounts to unjust enrichment because the donation went undeclared. On Thursday, the Sandiganbayan Third Division opened hearings on Marcoleta’s request for bail in that matter.
According to Rappler, the senator has maintained that the donation fell outside his required disclosures because it reached him before the 2025 senatorial campaign period formally began — though he was a sitting congressman at that point. The Ombudsman rejected that reasoning, treating the P75 million as ill-gotten wealth that crossed plunder’s P50-million threshold.
Because plunder does not permit bail as a matter of right, the settled anti-gift bonds do nothing to free him. Marcoleta remains held at the New Quezon City Jail while his petition for provisional liberty on the graver charge works its way through the court.
