“The real question is: why is such a storm being unleashed at this exact time?”
THE unfolding legal circus against Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla, rooted in the arrest and turnover of former President Rodrigo Duterte to the International Criminal Court, has become a test not only of law and politics, but of timing, choreography, and fear.
At the heart of it lies a question that resonates beyond the Department of Justice and into the halls of the Judicial and Bar Council: Who’s afraid of Boying Remulla becoming Ombudsman?
Over the past week, a barrage of cases has been hurled against him, all suspiciously timed just as he completes the requirements for his Ombudsman application. The sequence is too precise to be coincidence.
First, the complaint filed in March 2025 by Sen. Imee Marcos over the arrest of former President Rodrigo Duterte was dismissed by the Ombudsman on Sept. 11. Yet, on the very same day, Sen. Marcos filed a motion for reconsideration.
The speed of that filing raises eyebrows. How could such a motion, normally drafted after reviewing the dismissal’s basis, be prepared and submitted in mere hours?
The logical inference: it was pre-written, waiting in the wings, a ready-made tool to ensure the dismissal never truly took effect. Less law, more choreography.
Then, on Sept. 15, Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte filed a new complaint before the Ombudsman in Mindanao. The charges were essentially the same as Marcos’s, now dressed up with the added label of kidnapping.
The Supreme Court has consistently held that simply adding new grounds does not erase forum shopping when cases arise from the same essential facts.
Courts frown on forum shopping precisely because it clogs the system with repetitive, harassing litigation.
That same day, Atty. Ferdinand Topacio filed yet another case, this time linking Remulla and NBI Director Jaime Santiago to the arrest of Cassandra Ong and Alice Guo in Indonesia in Aug. 2024.
But here is the glaring issue: why did it take more than a year for this complaint to surface?
If there truly was arbitrary detention, why wait until Sept. 2025, the very week Remulla’s Ombudsman bid is under JBC deliberation? Delayed outrage is no outrage at all; it is political timing dressed up as legal action.
The pattern becomes clearer once one understands the rules. To qualify for the JBC shortlist, an Ombudsman applicant must secure clearance from the Ombudsman certifying no pending administrative or criminal cases.
Without that clearance, the application ends before it begins. The JBC’s shortlist is then sent to the President, who makes the final appointment.
The timing of these complaints, therefore, is not random, it is strategic. Keep him entangled in “pending cases” and he cannot even reach the shortlist, regardless of merit.
Remulla himself has been blunt, calling this an “organized effort” to derail his candidacy. “The truth is on my side,” he told reporters, adding the JBC will surely see through the spectacle.
Indeed, the orchestration is difficult to ignore. Three separate complaints, all tied to the same event, filed within days of each other, at the precise moment his clearance is due? The plot speaks for itself.
What unnerves critics is not Remulla’s past, it is his future.
An Ombudsman with his temperament could shake entrenched systems of influence and patronage. For those who thrive in the shadows of impunity, the prospect of a Remulla-led Ombudsman’s office is intolerable.
The JBC and the Ombudsman must not allow themselves to be used as tools in this political game.
Otherwise, a dangerous precedent will be set: that any candidate for Ombudsman, or any judicial post, can be blocked simply by the filing of a nuisance case.
One frivolous complaint could derail an entire application. That would mock the system and reward those who weaponize litigation to stop reform-minded candidates.
The strategy is clear: bury Remulla in cases, stall his clearance, force the JBC to sideline him. But in doing so, his detractors may have revealed their hand too much.
An MR filed almost instantly, as if scripted. A kidnapping angle suddenly attached to a dismissed case. A one-year-old arrest in Indonesia resurrected at the perfect political moment.
These are not the hallmarks of justice. They are the fingerprints of fear.
So the question is not whether Remulla can withstand the storm, he has rolled with bigger punches before.
The real question is: why is such a storm being unleashed at this exact time?
The answer circles back to where we began: Who’s afraid of Ombudsman Boying Remulla? (Email: ernhil@yahoo.com)
