THE Office of the Ombudsman has stopped an investigation into a complaint accusing Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez and other House leaders of graft for the approval of the P6.325-trillion national budget for 2025.
Ombudsman Samuel Martires ruled that they could not take actions on the complaint since a petition for certiorari and prohibition was filed with the Supreme Court (SC) by former executive secretary Vic Rodriguez and Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab.
The petitioners questioned the legality of the 2025 General Appropriations Act due to alleged blanks in the bicameral conference committee report.
“Doubtless, the alleged criminal liability of respondents Romualdez, et. al., that is raised in the herein Complaint, refers also to the same blank items in the Bicam Report that is the subject of the petition for certiorari and prohibition. In the wink of an eye, common sense will remind any student of the law that judicial courtesy dictates that the quasi-judicial body should, and must yield and await the decision of the High Tribunal before acting on the case pending before it,” Martires said.
“The Supreme Court must first resolve the issue of constitutionality before the criminal action pending before the Ombudsman will proceed. Wherefore, the foregoing considered, further action on the criminal complaint docketed as OMB-C-C-FEB-25-0042 is ordered suspended and held in abeyance until such time that the Supreme Court has resolved with finality the pending Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition in G.R. No. 27797,” the decision stated.
Martires dismissed a motion from a similar set of graft complainants for the preventive suspension of Romualdez and the House leaders.
“Here, no [criminal] information has as yet been filed so obviously, the mandatory suspension pendente lite under Section 13 of Republic Act No. 3019 does not also apply,” he said.
“For utter paucity of merit, the Motion for Preventive Suspension, dated February 17, 2025, is hereby denied,” he said.