Court junks forfeiture bid over $5M in Romualdez clan Swiss account
The Sandiganbayan has dismissed the government’s bid to forfeit the alleged “unexplained wealth” worth over $5 million in the Swiss accounts owned by the late Benjamin “Kokoy” Romualdez and his wife Juliette Gomez-Romualdez.
The antigraft court’s Sixth Division dismissed the Office of Solicitor General’s (OSG) motion for reconsideration filed in November last year against the release of the $5,193,726.37 funds in the Union Bank of Switzerland accounts owned by the respondents and placed in escrow with the Philippine National Bank.
The funds are now worth P311,095,900 based on Friday’s exchange rate of P59.89 per $1.
In October last year, the Fourth Division granted the release of the escrowed funds upon the petition of Romualdez’s heirs.
However, the OSG filed the petition before the Sixth Division on Nov. 17, 2025, or three days after the Fourth Division dismissed their motion for reconsideration on the release of the escrow funds on Nov. 14 of the same year.
Noninterference
“Regardless of whether the Fourth Division correctly ruled on the matter before it, or whether it had jurisdiction to do so, this Court, being co-equal with the Fourth Division, and without the authority to annul its acts, cannot interfere in the said ruling, respecting the doctrine of non-interference,” Associate Justice Sarah Jane Fernandez, the Sixth Division chair, stated in a resolution promulgated on Thursday, March 19.
“ACCORDINGLY, the Motion to Dismiss Ad Cautelam filed by respondents Romualdez is GRANTED on the ground of non-interference,” the resolution further stated. “SB-25-CVL-0001 is hereby DISMISSED.”
The SB-25-CVL-0001 is the original petition referring to the case filed by the Office of the Ombudsman in 2011, referred to as SB-11-CVL-0003 in later petitions.
In 2011, the Office of the Ombudsman filed a petition before the anti-graft court’s Fourth Division for the forfeiture of the amount in question. On June 18, 2018, the Fourth Division dismissed this petition.
The OSG then filed a motion for reconsideration in the Fourth Division, which denied it on Aug. 30, 2018.
On June 10, 2025, or more than six years and nine months later, Romualdez’s heirs filed their motion to obtain the escrowed funds; the Fourth Division granted the release of the amount, “together with all the interests earned thereon” in a resolution issued on Oct. 3 the same year.
Forum shopping?
“The Fourth Division held that petitioner Republic’s prolonged inaction, after the dismissal of SB-11-CVL-0003 in 2018, should be considered as an abandonment or waiver of its right to seek the forfeiture of the escrowed funds,” the Sixth Division said in its March 19 resolution.
The respondents accused the OSG of forum shopping when they filed the case in the Sixth Division after the immediate dismissal of the Fourth Division.
In response, the OSG denied this, arguing that the government has the right to re-file the petition since the original petition was “dismissed without prejudice.”
A case dismissed without prejudice—which was issued due to lack of jurisdiction, among other reasons—can still be refiled in another court.
Marcos kin
The Sixth Division said the OSG should resort to a higher court—in this case, the Supreme Court—and not a co-equal body like another Sandiganbayan division.
The OSG has since filed before the high court a petition for certiorari for a temporary restraining order on the Fourth Division’s Oct. 3 and Nov. 14, 2025, resolutions.
The Romualdez patriarch, who passed away in 2012, is the father of former Speaker Martin Romualdez.
He was also the youngest brother of former first lady Imelda Marcos, wife of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr.
Marcos Sr. is estimated to have stolen between $5 billion and $10 billion from the country’s coffers during his martial rule, according to a World Bank report.
Martial law was declared on Sept. 23, 1972, and was lifted on Jan. 17, 1981, but democracy was only restored after the 1986 Edsa People Power revolution.
Years after the Marcos family exile, their political clan returned to power with Marcos Jr. elected as the country’s 17th president in 2022.
