Ombudsman frames Romualdez as having "functional control" over House appropriations panel

Assistant Ombudsman and spokesperson Mico Clavano on Thursday, May 28, 2026, said former House Speaker Martin Romualdez may have exercised "functional control" over the House Committee on Appropriations during the period the panel processed the flood control budget insertions the Office of the Ombudsman is now prosecuting. The framing places Romualdez inside the chain of responsibility for the General Appropriations Act riders despite his not sitting as a member of the bicameral conference committee. Clavano said the cases the Ombudsman is preparing rest on a preliminary probable cause finding dated April 20, 2026 for plunder, direct and indirect bribery, and money laundering, and that the investigation was "built over months, not sudden." He pushed back at separate criticism that the "grand case" framing amounted to grandstanding, saying the office's posture would rest on the evidence and not on the public framing. The statements add doctrinal scaffolding to Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla's May 26 announcement of a forthcoming "grand case" against Romualdez built around a first-of-its-kind conspiracy to defraud the treasury charge, and a parallel money laundering complaint. The Secretariat of the House Committee on Appropriations had previously refused to receive Ombudsman subpoenas during the budget-insertion investigation, a procedural obstacle the office has acknowledged on the record. Romualdez's camp responded the following day. Spokesperson Elaine Atienza, in remarks on May 29, 2026, said there is "no such thing as functional control" over the budget process and that the framing misstates how appropriations move through the chamber.