WHEN THE OMBUDSMAN DOES ITS JOB, THE GUILTY START FILING COMPLAINTS

There is a pattern that plays out every time a government institution actually works the way it is supposed to. The people it is going after stop talking about their alleged crimes. They start talking about the institution instead.

That is what is happening right now with Ombudsman Jesus Crispin "Boying" Remulla.

Before we go any further, let me put something on the table.

When word got out that Boying Remulla was being positioned as the next Ombudsman, I wrote against it. I was among the first few who did.

I raised the patterns of behavior, the cases, the questions about whether a man with his political history and alliances could genuinely run an office that exists to go after people exactly like the ones who put him there.

I had doubts about his sense of justice and fairness as the role demands. I still do.

I am not a fan of how he runs the office.

The constant press briefings. The public telegraphing of moves before cases are even filed.

Announcing plunder charges in press conferences before the paperwork is done, which his own spokesperson had to walk back at least once.

An Ombudsman who holds weekly press conferences is an Ombudsman who has turned a prosecutorial office into a performance.

That is a real problem, and I will not pretend otherwise.

So understand this clearly: what I am about to write is not a defense of Boying Remulla the man or Boying Remulla the administrator.

It is a defense of what happens when an office does its job, and the people being charged respond by trying to destroy the office.

Those are two VERY different things.

THE CASES PILING UP

In early July 2026, reports surfaced that an impeachment complaint against Remulla was being circulated among members of the House of Representatives.

Political commentator Jesus Falcis was among the first to mention it publicly, saying his source told him the complaint was being passed around Congress and had the support of some religious groups.

The Ombudsman's office did not miss the timing. They called it the "galawan ng mga guilty," or the moves of the guilty.

Look at what happened just days before this complaint started making the rounds.

On July 3, 2026, the Office of the Ombudsman filed a plunder case against Senator Rodante Marcoleta before the Sandiganbayan (anti-graft court) over a P75 million campaign donation that Marcoleta admitted receiving but never declared in his Soce (Statement of Contributions and Expenditures).

The Ombudsman did this despite three straight days of unsanctioned Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) rallies along EDSA, which ground traffic to a halt and, for a time, forced thousands of commuters to suffer while their senator's legal problems were turned into a religious cause.

Remulla told reporters his office would not be stopped. And they were not.

The Marcoleta case is not even the biggest thing on the Ombudsman's desk right now.

As of June 2026, the Office of the Ombudsman had 209 active investigations into flood control projects, with four cases already filed in court.

Former senators Bong Revilla and Jinggoy Estrada are back in the crosshairs, facing plunder and graft charges tied to the flood control mess.

Former contractor couple Curlee and Sarah Discaya are also facing charges.

And then there is former House Speaker Martin Romualdez, who the Ombudsman was preparing to hit with five to six plunder cases linked to the same flood control scandal, involving an alleged P56-billion kickback scheme.

Romualdez's lawyers moved to disqualify Remulla's entire office from investigating their client, arguing the Ombudsman had already made up his mind.

Remulla refused to step aside. He said there is no such concept as Ombudsman inhibition (stepping back from a case due to alleged bias).

The Office of the Ombudsman was also preparing plunder charges against former Senate President Chiz Escudero for his alleged role in the same flood control mess. And separately, the Ombudsman's office was looking at the cases of Vice President Sara Duterte, involving the alleged misuse of P500 million in confidential funds at the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and P112.5 million at the Department of Education (DepEd).

Marcoleta. Romualdez. Escudero. Estrada. Revilla. Sara Duterte.

These are not small names. And every single time Remulla moved, someone pushed back.

THE IMPEACHMENT THREAT: ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK

The timing of the impeachment threat against Remulla is not subtle.

In July 2026, the plunder case against Marcoleta drops.

Within days, an impeachment complaint is reportedly being circulated in the House, reportedly with support from some religious groups.

The sequence is not hard to follow. The Ombudsman charges someone. The allies of the someone find a way to go after the Ombudsman. The institution doing the charging suddenly becomes the one that has to defend itself.

This is not new in Philippine politics.

When Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez was in office under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's administration, the opposite problem existed.

She was protecting the powerful instead of prosecuting them.

The House eventually impeached her in 2011, with 212 votes, on grounds including failure to act on the fertilizer fund scam and the selective absolution of powerful officials linked to Arroyo.

The people cheered because the institution had become a shield for the corrupt. It needed to be removed.

The situation today is reversed. The Ombudsman is doing what the office was built to do. And now the people whose interests are threatened are the ones pushing for his removal.

Former President Arroyo, now a representative for Pampanga, reportedly said she will "vote against it" if an impeachment complaint against Remulla reaches the House floor.

Her camp denied she was leading any plot to file one.

But that these denials even needed to be issued tells you how much political pressure is already building.

HOW AN IMPEACHABLE OFFICE GETS WEAPONIZED

Under Article XI, Section 2 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution, the Ombudsman is an impeachable officer. That means the only way to remove Remulla is through the House filing impeachment articles and the Senate sitting as an impeachment court.

That is supposed to be a safeguard against arbitrary removal. The bar is high on purpose.

But the same mechanism designed to protect the office can also be weaponized.

File a complaint.

Drag it out.

Force the Ombudsman to spend time defending himself instead of building cases.

Use the spectacle of proceedings to paint the institution as politically compromised.

Hope that the noise creates enough doubt in public opinion that the prosecutorial momentum breaks.

The Ombudsman's office, to its credit, has not shown signs of backing down.

When the INC held its EDSA rally without a permit on June 30, 2026, and the Quezon City government eventually gave it retroactive permission, Remulla still filed the case two days later.

When Romualdez's lawyers demanded the entire office recuse itself, Remulla said that was not how the law works.

When the rumor of an impeachment complaint started floating, the Ombudsman's response was to name it for what it was: a move by those who have something to hide.

That kind of institutional backbone is rare in this country. And that is exactly why it is being tested.

THE PERSONAL INTERESTS RUNNING THE SHOW

Who actually benefits from a weakened or distracted Ombudsman?

Marcoleta's plunder case involves a P75 million undeclared donation.

The senator himself confirmed he received the money.

His allies in Congress and within the INC organized mass mobilizations to pressure the Ombudsman into dropping it.

Romualdez, who was the most powerful man in the House for years, faces a P56-billion flood control scandal.

His lawyers tried to legally bar the Ombudsman from investigating him.

When that did not work, reports began suggesting certain legislators close to his camp were involved in the impeachment complaint being circulated.

Former President Arroyo, who has cases of her own from earlier administrations and who reportedly had Ombudsman Martires installed under Duterte, now sits as a House representative.

Read that list again.

Marcoleta. Romualdez. Arroyo.

Each of them, through different channels, has pushed back against the Ombudsman since the cases started moving. The approaches vary. The interest is the same.

Senator Imee Marcos, the president's sister, was already warning in September 2025 that appointing Remulla as Ombudsman was a plot to jail the Duterte family and their allies.

She vowed to block it. She did not succeed.

Remulla was appointed in October 2025, after serving as the 59th Secretary of the Department of Justice (DOJ), and he hit the ground running.

Retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio warned from the start that Remulla must avoid selective prosecution or he would lose public trust.

So far, the evidence suggests Remulla has gone after both Duterte allies and Marcos allies.

Estrada and Revilla have old connections across political lines.

Escudero and Romualdez served under the Marcos-allied House leadership. [Note: Escudero’s loyalty is still debatable at this point.]

Marcoleta is INC-backed.

Sara Duterte's cases remain active.

The variety of targets is what has everyone rattled.

THE COST OF THIS NOISE

Every time an impeachment threat gets floated, every time a rally shuts down EDSA, every time a legal motion forces the Ombudsman to respond to accusations of bias, the actual work of building corruption cases slows down.

There are 209 flood control investigations still running.

The Sara Duterte cases are still being processed.

Romualdez's freeze orders are still working through the courts.

All of that requires the Ombudsman's office to be focused, resourced, and functioning.

Forcing it into a defensive posture does not just waste time.

It breaks momentum. It discourages witnesses from cooperating. It gives the accused more room to maneuver legally. It creates enough public confusion that ordinary Filipinos start asking whether the Ombudsman is actually impartial, or just another tool of whoever appointed him.

And that confusion, manufactured and sustained, is the entire strategy.

When the institution doing the prosecuting looks embattled, the accused look less guilty.

The question worth raising now is not whether Remulla deserves impeachment.

Based on what is publicly known, no formal complaint has even been filed yet.

The complaint is still being "circulated," which in Philippine politics means it exists as a threat more than a formal proceeding.

The more honest question is: what kind of country are we running when doing your job correctly becomes grounds for being politically targeted?

The Office of the Ombudsman was built to be independent.

It was given a fixed term, financial autonomy, and constitutional protection specifically so that it could go after powerful people without fear of political retaliation.

The moment the system allows powerful people to launch impeachment proceedings every time the Ombudsman does something they do not like, that independence collapses.

Through political harassment alone, no dramatic ruling required.

I do not like the way Boying Remulla runs his press conferences. I do not think announcing cases before they are filed is how a serious prosecutor's office should operate. I had doubts about him when he was appointed, and those doubts have not fully gone away.

But I can hold two things at once. I can think Remulla is an imperfect Ombudsman and still recognize that what is being done to him right now has nothing to do with accountability.

The people circulating that impeachment complaint are not concerned with institutional integrity.

The Ombudsman's independence is just collateral damage on the way to protecting their own.

One step forward. Two steps back. And it starts again.

And again. Until we learn to elect the right people.