Defensor’s Magic Show: One Witness, Two Affidavits, Zero Evidence, and a Vanishing Family for the Finale

Featuring the World-Famous “I Don’t Know But I’m 100% Sure” Illusion

By Louis ‘Barok‘ C. Biraogo — November 26, 2025

1. “Trust Me Bro, There’s a Video” – Defensor’s One-Man Theater of the Absurd

Former Anakalusagan party-list representative Mike Defensor went on radio and declared that Orly Guteza — the surprise Senate witness who swore he delivered trash bags full of kickbacks to former Speaker Martin Romualdez and former Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co — has been forced to recant. There’s a new affidavit. There’s a video. Guteza supposedly now accuses Defensor and Sen. Rodante Marcoleta of bribing him.

And where is this explosive evidence? Somewhere over the rainbow, apparently. Defensor’s greatest hits:

“I don’t know who pressured him.”
“I don’t know where he is now.”
“Last I heard, Marine intelligence had him” → Philippine Navy: “Fake news.”
“I personally hid his family for their safety.”

So the same man screaming “witness tampering!” is… tampering with the witness’s family. The irony could power Luzon for a week.

**Tonight Only: Watch a Recantation Video That Exists Only in Radio Interviews**.

2. Legal Autopsy: Everyone’s Guilty of Something, Nobody’s Innocent of Anything

Here’s what the Revised Penal Code (RPC) has to say while sipping coffee and laughing at all of us:

Orly Guteza → Potential Perjury (Art. 183, RPC) and Falsification by private individual (Art. 172, RPC) because the Manila RTC already found the original affidavit’s notarization was falsified.
Defensor / Marcoleta / handlers → Subornation of perjury (Art. 184), Obstruction of Justice (Presidential Decree 1829), possible conspiracy.
Whoever actually coerced the alleged recantation → Same menu + grave coercion.
Romualdez & Co (if original testimony survives) → Plunder (Republic Act 7080), Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act (RA 3019).

And the Supreme Court has been crystal clear for decades: recantations are treated like the drunk uncle at a wedding — with “utmost suspicion” and “extreme caution.” Mere recantation does not automatically erase prior sworn testimony (People v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 198338, 2013; People v. Lao Wan Sing. G.R. No. L-16379, 1966). A forged notarization, meanwhile, is governed by the 2004 Rules on Notarial Practice (A.M. No. 02-8-13-SC) — and it turns the entire document into legal toilet paper.

3. Follow the Cowardice: Who Wins When a Witness Disappears?

Defensor gets to play hero while controlling the narrative.
Romualdez gets reasonable doubt gift-wrapped.
The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee gets turned into a Netflix true-crime mockery.
The Filipino people get another lesson that testifying against the powerful is a one-way ticket to the witness-protection shadow realm — or worse.

4. Institutional Roadkill: Another Corpse on the Highway of Public Trust

Every vanished witness is a tombstone that reads: “Here lies faith in Philippine institutions.”
The Office of the Ombudsman (RA 6770) looks catatonic.
The Department of Justice Witness Protection Program (RA 6981) is apparently on eternal coffee break.
And future whistleblowers are taking notes: keep your mouth shut or prepare to star in the next season of Disappearing Witnesses PH.

5. Prescription from the Cave: No More Magic Tricks

Mike Defensor has 48 hours to produce:

The original “recantation” affidavit (not a photocopy of a rumor)
The mythical video with verifiable chain of custody
Orly Guteza in the flesh, under oath, before the Senate or the Ombudsman

Fail to do so → brand him what he is: a purveyor of political fan-fiction.

Immediate actions required:

National Bureau of Investigation takeover of the tampering/falsification probe
Senate contempt citations for everyone playing hide-and-seek
Formal activation of the Witness Protection, Security and Benefit Act (RA 6981) so witnesses stop vanishing into Defensor’s private safe houses
Ombudsman preliminary investigation on plunder — yesterday

This is no longer politics.
This is corruption, cowardice, and chaos served neat with a forged notary seal on top.

The only cure is daylight, subpoenas, and handcuffs — no matter how high the names go.

No mercy. No anesthesia.