In September 21, 2025, the Filipinos across the country rose up to express the strongest indignation against corruption in government. President Bongbong Marcos made history by allowing the people to show redress of grievances against government on the day 53 years ago his father took down democracy.

A few weeks later on October 7, the president appointed Jesus Crispin Remulla, then Justice Secretary as the Ombudsman. Boying as he is commonly called took the helm of the essential Constitutional body with the people crying blood – shouting in righteous indignation: Ikulong ang mga kurakot!

Did he deliver? Many wished the Ombudsman was swift to bring to jail corrupt government officials. We surmise Ombudsman Remulla knew the pressure, felt the pressure. But he too knew that sending people suspected of sticking their hands in the cookie jar and pocketing what was in it with certainty of conviction is easier said than done.

The slow wheels of case build-up was exploited by the DDS opposition as failure of the President to follow up on his expose against the flood control projects scam, he exposed in his State of the Nation Address in July last year. This same DDS crowd took to the streets – actually a handful of them – to protest the impending arrest of one of their own Sen. Rodante Marcoleta who is facing a case for plunder.

Many were quick to conclude that the pronouncement of the President against corruption in his SONA last year was cheap talk. And Ombudsman Remulla would fail in bringing in the big fishes to jail while facing trial in the Sandiganbayan.

Critics of the government’s anti-corruption drive dismissed the rigors of case build-up, of following to the minutest detail rules on due process. These same critics are most likely the same people who would shout injustice at the filing of grave threat case against the vice president.

Filing criminal cases left and right is easy. Case build-up to satisfy the requirements of probable cause and high certainty of conviction is indubitably more difficult.

Quantum of evidence is where protest, even righteous indignation on the streets and in the media is differentiated. In criminal cases, proof beyond reasonable doubt is needed to convict. And even an iota of doubt over an accused guilt results in acquittal, which does not necessarily mean that the accused is not guilty as charged. That is how the criminal justice system in modern societies work. The former president who tinkered with it, did his anti-drugs war like a crusading cowboy is now in a cold jail cell in the Hague facing trial for Crimes Against Humanity.

After months of rigorous case build-up, big fishes started to get enmeshed with the law. Former senator Bong Revilla was given the orange shirt. Then Senator Jinggoy Estrada. At the other side of the flood control scam clean-up, notorious contractors like the Discaya couple were sent by the Dept. of Justice to jail, pending trial of their cases. 

The latest, and perhaps the biggest fish to wear the orange shirt is no less than the Presidential first cousin, Leyte congressman and former Speaker of the House Martin Romualdez. Romualdez was arrested on September 7, 2026, over a P7.44-billion plunder case but remains in hospital confinement due to health issues.

Next on the Ombudsman’s list is reportedly the other ‘mastermind’ of the flood control project scam, former Ako Bicol Party-list congressman and former chairperson of the notorious House Budget Committee who engineered billions of pesos insertions to fund flood control projects which turned out to be ghosts, sub-standard and overpriced. Zaldy Co is reportedly in France seeking asylum.

Happy fishing in France Ombudsman Boying!