The Fall of Martin Romualdez
Elite political scion caught in scandal that shakes the Philippines
By: Tita C. Valderama
Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, the nephew of grand doyenne Imelda Marcos, first cousin to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, son of a former Ambassador to the US and the putative heir to the Philippines’ most powerful political dynasty, must be spending sleepless nights counting which allies are still with him.
In the past weeks, with Romualdez enmeshed in the biggest political scandal in decades over profiting from ghost infrastructure projects, chants of “Ikulong na’ yan, mga kurakot, ikulong na ‘yan (Jail them, corrupt people, jail them!)” have rung through sporting events, religious activities or concerts, even in performances by foreign entertainers. Students hold university-wide protests, chanting the same and demanding accountability over widespread corruption in infrastructure projects.
Romualdez’s face is always among those on the placards of the allegedly corrupt officials in high places that people want held accountable. He was deposed in September as House Speaker in the denouement of the scandal, his expected anointment as 2028 presidential standard-bearer in tatters over the multibillion-dollar flood control scandal that has mesmerized Filipinos during weeks of public hearings and reportedly shocked even Marcos, whose own father was accused of stealing US$10 billion before he was forced to flee in 1986.
An Independent Commission for Infrastructure appointed by the president has been conducting its probe of the affair behind closed doors amid demands to livestream its proceedings, which has yet to materialize. Romualdez was supposed to face the ICI a second time on October 22 but he requested a resetting because of an unspecified medical procedure. It is a truism in the Philippines that when the going gets tough, the tough seek medical care, often in another country.
There have been allegations that the 62-year-old Romualdez received kickbacks from substandard and so-called ghost flood control projects. Reports have emerged of embarrassing personal wealth, including a USS$2.24 million Massachusetts property and unproven claims of ownership of 12 houses in the exclusive Forbes Park area of Manila.
The budget manipulation issue has not only ruined Romualdez’s presidential bid, but he stands little chance of getting off scot-free from the flood control mess, with the impending reinstatement of Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson as chair of the Blue-Ribbon Committee and the recent appointment of Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla as Ombudsman. Both are eagerly pursuing the investigations, building up cases against those responsible for the plunder of the nation’s coffers and making sure they go to jail.
Remulla, in an interview with local media, said that Romualdez may be charged with gross negligence for having allowed Zaldy Co to mangle the budget. Gross negligence carries penalties of dismissal from the service, perpetual disqualification from public office, forfeiture of retirement benefits, among others – a blow, but not one like suborning a bribe, which would get him prison time, this being the Philippines.
The situation Romualdez is in now is of his own making. While he proclaimed prudent spending of the annual budget, the appropriations program approved by the House was riddled with pork barrel items, including a multi-billion-peso cash assistance fund for politicians to distribute close to the elections.
Contrary to his promise to “help uncover the truth” in the raging flood control controversy, Romualdez allowed now-resigned party list representative Elizaldy Co, former chair of the appropriations committee, to flee the country, supposedly for medical treatment after reports that SUV loads of cash were being hauled to his penthouse. Romualdez has failed so far to extricate himself from the deep-seated and systemic corruption afflicting the legislature through its most important function: the authorization of public expenditures.
Both Romualdez and Zaldy Co have denied the accusations made against them, calling the claims false and malicious. Many believe that when Co is returned to the country to speak up, not only Romualdez but many others complicit in both the executive and legislative branches in the complex and systemic web of corruption would be exposed.
Co played a key role in the massive national budget realignments from 2023 to 2025, when cuts totaling P1.45 trillion (US$24.7 billion) were diverted to lump sums for various cash assistance programs and the legislators’ pork barrel, including funding for flood control projects.
“Flood control represents only 22 percent of the infrastructure projects of Department of Public Works and Highways and less than 25 percent of the total diverted budgets. There’s more,” said Florencio Abad, former congressman and budget secretary under the presidency of Benigno Aquino III.
“This is unprecedented: in the magnitude of plundered public funds (in trillion pesos), in the complicity of the highest officials of the legislature and the executive, in the manner it was executed – indiscriminate, careless and reckless,” Abad said when asked how the flood control scandal is different from the past corruption cases, such as the 2013 pork barrel issue and the 1995 PEA-Amari land deal that a senator then described as the “mother of all scams.”
Of the P1.45 trillion diverted funds, P564.46 billion was taken from funded programs and projects needed for education and other government functions in the 2024 General Appropriations Bill. Defunded programs and projects were then placed under unprogrammed appropriations to give an impression that funding would be restored. In the 2025 budget, the cuts totaled P487.5 billion, including P74.4 billion from PhilHealth and P94 billion from the social welfare department. The rest were realigned from the 2023 GAA.
‘Marcos is clearly complicit’
Abad said Marcos shouldn’t be spared the investigations that he had ordered. “He is clearly complicit. He knew this. His move (to expose the anomalies and have those investigated) was tactical: to give the appearance of having been left in the dark and betrayed by his political allies.”
While Marcos did say that the investigation by the ICI will be independent and won’t spare anyone, including family members and allies such as Romualdez and Co, he said he knew there were discrepancies but that he found “shocking” the scale of malfeasance and abuse being committed.
“The reason I brought it up and made it part of the national discourse was quite simply because this could not go on. Because if it kept going – suddenly you discovered how deeply entrenched this entire system was,” Marcos said in a podcast aired Oct. 6.
As House speaker, Romualdez was responsible for choosing Co to head the powerful appropriations committee. His wife, party-list Rep. Yedda Romualdez, chaired the committee on accounts, the House’s internal budget, budget preparation, disbursement, accounting and financial operations in the previous Congress. She’s now its senior vice chair.
News reports say the Romualdez couple has several multi-billion-peso projects in their bailiwick in Eastern Visayas that were awarded to the companies founded and owned by the Co family, particularly Sunwest Construction and Development Corp.
A Sept. 27 to 30 survey by Pulse Asia showed 69 percent of respondents disapproved of the way the Marcos government handles issues related to graft and corruption. In social media platforms, netizens are getting impatient why high officials haven’t been jailed.
As speaker, Romualdez was third in the line of succession after the vice president and the Senate president, until he was pressured to resign on Sept. 17 from suspicion of having presided over the assault on the national government budget. Sen. Francis Escudero stepped down as Senate president 10 days ahead of Romualdez following reports that he had inserted a questionable P142 billion in the 2025 budget.
“This thing is outrageous and makes me cry…How can these people get away with P500 billion,” said retired Supreme Court justice Andres Reyes, chair of the Independent Commission for Infrastructure that Marcos created on Sept. 11 to investigate alleged corruption and irregularities in government flood control and other infrastructure projects from the last 10 years.
“I could not believe what I was hearing in terms of the magnitude of the corruption,” said Rogelio Singson, a member of the commission and minister of public works during the presidency of Benigno Aquino III. He continued, “I tried to analyze where did the system fail. It looked like it was all over.”
Reyes and Singson made the statements when they appeared on Oct. 22 before three Senate committees discussing a legislative proposal for the creation of a nonpartisan and autonomous body with the authority to probe all forms of government corruption.
When Romualdez first appeared before the ICI on October 14, the Leyte representative again denied receiving kickbacks from the alleged anomalous flood control projects and maintained that he “has nothing to hide.”
ICI Executive Director Brian Keith Osaka said in a media briefing that Romualdez did not tag any personalities in the alleged corruption scheme, but he named several lawmakers supposedly involved in the crafting of the national budget. The former House speaker was supposed to further explain his sworn affidavit, which he voluntarily submitted to the ICI, during his next appearance.