Some are smarter than the law
A quote attributed to Solon, a 6th century Athenian statesman and lawmaker, might well describe the country’s anti-plunder law. Solon noted that “laws are like spiders’ webs; if some poor, weak creature comes up against them, it is caught, while a big one can break through and escape.”
Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla has thus described Republic Act No. 7080 or the Anti-Plunder Act as a “shield for the guilty,” as it has made it difficult to fully prosecute the contractors and politicians involved in anomalous flood control projects that leeched billions in public funds. The official has called on the Supreme Court to revisit its landmark 2016 ruling in the Macapagal-Arroyo vs People case. The judicial doctrine, Remulla argued, has two strict evidentiary requirements that allow cunning criminals to escape the law’s intent “to hold accountable those who steal billions.”
Under the ruling written by then Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin, the prosecution must identify a main plunderer or a single mastermind of the scheme. The accused must also be proven to have personally received or directly profited from the stolen money.
Complex layering
Such constraints only serve to reward sophisticated criminal networks, Remulla argued. “The smarter the thief, the safer he is. Pass the money through enough dummies, middlemen, and offshore companies, and no one can be shown to have touched it … Under this doctrine, the biggest syndicate is the hardest to catch. That is not justice. It is merely a shield.”
To illustrate how these affect current plunder cases, Remulla cited the complex layering of subcontractors in questionable flood control and government infrastructure projects, which has made the “main plunderer” requirement a steep legal hurdle to full prosecution. There were “many hands, layers of contractors, and money moving through accounts that do not carry the names of those who profited,” thus erasing the paper trail leading to the “main plunderer.”
So far, the Ombudsman has filed 39 cases related to the flood control mess, 35 of them with the Sandiganbayan and four with regional trial courts. Among the 52 individuals charged are former Speaker Martin Romualdez, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, former Sen. Bong Revilla, and former Public Works Secretary Manuel Bonoan.
Reality in financial crimes
Remulla has said the two restrictive requirements are not in the law, and he is correct, lawyer Raul Palabrica wrote in his Oct. 16, 2026 Inquirer column. The columnist cited the three elements needed to be held liable for plunder, namely: 1) the accused is a public official who acts in connivance with family members or other individuals; 2) the wealth must have been acquired through a series of criminal acts like kickbacks or misappropriation and malversation of public funds; and 3) the total value of money amassed from those acts is at least P50 million.
Palabrica noted that there was no mention, directly or indirectly, and even by inference, that a main plunderer has to be named or identified before plunder is deemed to have been committed. Neither was there mention of the need to show that the accused had personally received or benefited from the ill-gotten wealth.
Such requirements, Palabrica wrote, ignore the reality in financial crimes where ingenious masterminds make sure that their name or identity are not in any transaction documents. The process of corporate layering and the creation of offshore bank accounts in global tax havens with strict confidentiality rules easily obscure the personal beneficiaries of the funds, he added.
With their huge resources and political influence, accused plunderers have the means and opportunity to retain financial experts who know all the dubious but still legal ways to hide their ill-gotten gains and evade the plunder law.
Similar machination
In fact, a similar machination was revealed in the ongoing impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte. In their testimony, bank representatives disclosed how the Duterte father and daughter would buy manager’s checks to show the withdrawal of stupendous sums from their accounts. The manager’s checks would remain floating with the bank until they are deposited into the specified accounts, such that the account balance remains depleted. Unexplained wealth can then be effectively hidden as very little is reflected in the two officials’ statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth, a requirement for all public officials under the 1987 Constitution and RA 6713.
Remulla noted that his office has done the hardest part of building the plunder cases, “The next chapter [now] belongs to the courts,” he said, adding that he hopes the courts would be “what the Constitution asks of them—impartial, independent, and attuned to the times.”
Indeed, the courts must interpret the law to hold plunderers accountable instead of shielding them. Aside from perpetuating injustice, unresponsive, unenforced, or poorly designed laws undermine public trust and weaken an already fragile legal system.
