The Office of the Ombudsman is turning to artificial intelligence to process thousands of documents handed over by the Independent Commission for Infrastructure, as the body wraps up its operations at the end of the month.
Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla said his office received “200 mega-boxes” of data from the ICI, containing vouchers, contracts, and hard drives tied to anomalous flood control projects. To manage the volume, he said AI would be used to organize the material and identify who signed off on documents and disbursement checks.
“We’ll be scrutinizing the documents submitted to us by the ICI within the next few days. And this will be very important because with the aid of artificial intelligence, it’s easier to look at this data and to have it organized. And we will be using AI for this purpose,” Remulla said.
He elaborated on what the technology would be expected to surface: “We can actually maximize the use of artificial intelligence to go through the facts, to go through the disbursement vouchers… All of it comes into a procedure, the procedure for approving a project, all the way to the implementation. That’s what we want to see.”
The ICI, established under Executive Order 94, will cease operations on March 31. Chairman Andres Reyes Jr. — who had been running the commission alone since the resignations of fellow commissioners Rogelio Singson and Rossana Fajardo in December 2025 — said the body had accomplished what it was created to do.
“With these frameworks and systems now in place, I believe that the commission has fulfilled its mandate under Executive Order 94, and that the work initiated by the ICI is now properly situated to be carried forward by the agencies established by law,” said Reyes, a retired associate justice.
“Thus, I hereby recommend that the ICI wind down its operations. The commission will remain operational until March 31, 2026, to complete the necessary administrative processes related to its wind-down,” he added.
During its six-month run, the ICI built an investigative framework and developed three information systems to track irregularities in public works. It made nine referrals to the ombudsman implicating 65 individuals — among them two sitting senators and dozens of House lawmakers and project contractors. President Marcos has been reviewing the commission’s 125-day accomplishment report, which runs over 1,000 pages, for more than a month.
Documents and evidence have been turned over to the ombudsman, with copies going to the Department of Justice and the Department of Public Works and Highways.
Remulla said the ICI had invited 13 congressmen to its hearings, with eight recommended for prosecution — a figure his office intends to exceed. “They only suggested eight to be prosecuted, but we are looking beyond that figure,” he said. He also noted the investigations covered “seven senators” and “no contractors.”
The ombudsman said most flood control complaints before his office are “70 to 80 percent complete,” and that not every case would involve plunder or malversation. “Not all of them will be plunder, not all of them will be malversation, but these will be nevertheless cases which will hurt and have a very stinging effect,” he said.
Remulla said he has been encouraging ICI legal staff to apply to the ombudsman’s office to preserve institutional knowledge built during the investigation. He set a clear prosecutorial standard for his office: building cases with “a higher standard of reasonable certainty of conviction” and presenting evidence continuously through to conclusion.
