Joel Villanueva and the politics of memory
There is one thing the past has taught us about law and politics in our country. When politicians face criminal charges, they often seek absolution not in the courts but in elections. Thus, politics takes precedence over the law, and electoral victory becomes a substitute for accountability.
It is what happens when institutions are weak. In such a setup, politicians are treated as a different species—effectively shielded from criminal liability. Rare is the judge or the Ombudsman who could stand up to politics, impervious to influence and intimidation, and carry the law to its logical conclusion. One such rarity was former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales.
True to her mandate, Morales investigated and filed plunder cases against three sitting senators: Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, and Bong Revilla. All were detained without bail and lost their seats as a result. The cases she built were so airtight that they led to convictions before the Sandiganbayan. Those found guilty had to wait until the fiercely independent lady Ombudsman retired. Only then could they obtain their release from detention.
But there was one legislator implicated in the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scandal who managed to elude sanctions—Sen. Joel Villanueva. A three-term congressman for Citizens’ Battle Against Corruption (Cibac) patylist group, Villanueva ran and won as senator in 2016 under the administration ticket of President Noynoy Aquino.
Flushed with victory, he must have thought the case involving the misuse of his 2008 P10 million PDAF allotment would remain buried beneath all other cases pending with the Ombudsman. He was mistaken. Defying the unwritten rule that electoral wins erase accountability, Ombudsman Morales pursued the case even after Villanueva had been elected to the Senate. Though the senator had quickly aligned himself with the new President, Rodrigo Duterte, there was little the Duterte administration could do for him while Ombudsman Morales was in office.
To Villanueva’s dismay, in November 2016—barely months into his first term as senator—he was found guilty by the Office of the Ombudsman of grave misconduct, serious dishonesty, and conduct prejudicial to the service. There were two cases: one administrative, the other criminal. The Ombudsman could have ordered his outright dismissal and perpetual disqualification from public office, if he were not a sitting senator. Instead, the Ombudsman endorsed its findings to the Senate for appropriate action.
The Senate leadership referred the matter to its legal counsel, which opined that (1) the Ombudsman had no administrative disciplinary jurisdiction over senators, and (2) Villanueva’s motion for reconsideration—based on his claim that his signature had been forged—made the ruling non-final.
When Ombudsman Morales retired in July 2018, President Duterte appointed former Supreme Court Justice Samuel Martires as Ombudsman. Sometime in 2019, Martires resolved Villanueva’s motion for reconsideration in his favor, reversing Morales’ earlier decision. This reversal, which happened almost three years after the MR was filed, acquitted Villanueva of any administrative liability, and effectively precluded the filing of criminal charges with the Sandiganbayan.
The Martires resolution was not publicly disclosed until very recently–when new Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla moved to enforce the original 2016 dismissal order against Villanueva. Apparently, apart from Ombudsman Martires, only the senator knew about it. Yet he chose not to publicize his “vindication” at that time. Why?
Was he being prudent, thinking silence was the better part of redemption? Or did he fear that calling attention to his case might reopen old questions about his innocence? Whatever his reason, the non-publication of the Martires ruling has fueled suspicion that the decision was deliberately kept under wraps because it could not stand scrutiny. Earlier, in June 2025, the Sandiganbayan convicted Janet Lim Napoles and a few other individuals of graft in connection with the PDAF allotment of Villanueva, then Cibac congressman. The latter was never charged before the Sandiganbayan.
What is certain is that the absence of publicity worked in Villanueva’s favor. When he ran for reelection in 2022, his PDAF record was barely remembered. He won handily. In contrast, his fellow accused—Enrile, Estrada, and Revilla—faced an electorate that had not forgotten. Enrile was trounced in 2019. Estrada, repudiated in 2019, barely squeaked through in 2022. Revilla, who sought reelection in 2025, lost.
The moral seems clear: as long as voters remember, they can be trusted to reject the corrupt at the polls. If we cannot always put the corrupt and powerful in jail, then it falls upon the media—and upon all of us—to keep their cases alive in public memory. Forgetting is the soil in which impunity festers.
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