“The water is rising. This time, let it rise all the way to the gates of the guilty”
A RETIRED lieutenant general earned P6.6 million in lawful income over two decades.
His family somehow acquired two California homes worth P66 million, a P25-million condominium in the most expensive tower in Metro Manila, provincial land, a commercial building, and bank accounts so plump the children could have retired before graduating from college.
Total value: roughly P135 million.
On Nov. 19, 2025 the Supreme Court said, in essence, “Nice try.”
It affirmed the Sandiganbayan’s order forfeiting every last peso and square meter of those assets to the Republic.
The general himself, Jacinto Ligot, died on June 4, 2024, but the Court reminded everyone that civil forfeiture is a case against dirty property, not against a corpse.
Death is not a receipt.
The Supreme Court ruled that wealth acquired by a public officer during their time in office that clearly exceeds their lawful income is presumed ill-gotten and may be forfeited, even if registered under the names of other individuals.
The court’s ruling, penned by Associate Justice Japar B. Dimaampao, upheld the forfeiture of properties, bank deposits, and investment accounts in the name of retired Lt. Gen. Ligot as well as assets traced to him but registered under his wife, children, and relatives.
The decision is deliciously ruthless.
The money trail led straight back to the general.
The sister who suddenly “owned” the Essensa unit had no visible means to buy a parking slot, let alone the condominium itself.
The children’s investment accounts were seeded long before they had report cards, much less paychecks.
The Court brushed aside the usual chorus of “kay ate yan, kay bunso yan” and applied Section 10 of Republic Act 1379 with the cold efficiency of a guillotine: legal title is irrelevant when the cash came from a public officer.
This is not a small victory. It is a loaded weapon handed to the Republic in the middle of a war we keep pretending is a drizzle.
Because if P135 million in unexplained wealth from one dead comptroller can be clawed back from his heirs, imagine what the same law can do to the engineers, district officers, and favored contractors who have turned Metro Manila into a yearly Venetian disaster zone.
Over the last three typhoon seasons alone, more than half a trillion pesos have been poured into “flood control.”
The result?
The floods are worse, the dikes are ghosts, and certain public servants now own subdivisions that would make a Forbes Park matron blush.
Commission on Audit reports read like crime novels: fictitious coordinates, non-existent riprap, projects certified 100-percent complete while the river laughs.
The Supreme Court has just given Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla and Solicitor General Darlene Marie Berberabe a freshly sharpened blade and a 20-page instruction manual titled “How to Do It.”
No need to prove the exact envelope that changed hands.
No need to wait for a criminal conviction that will never come.
Show the disproportion between salary and lifestyle, trace the amortization payments, ignore the relatives holding the land titles, and pull the trigger.
The Ligot precedent says the burden shifts to the respondents to explain — satisfactorily — where the money came from.
They will not be able to.
The country is tired of wading through waist-deep garbage water while the thieves who sold us imaginary dikes buy real islands.
The Supreme Court has removed the last respectable excuse.
Death did not save Gen. Ligot’s loot.
Fake receipts and dummy relatives will not save the flood-fund vampires either.
The forfeiture truck is idling outside the DPWH compound.
Someone just needs to step on the gas.
The water is rising. This time, let it rise all the way to the gates of the guilty.
P135 million from a dead general? Cute.
