Ronaldo Puno’s Conscience Vote: Hedging Bets While Sara Counts the Bags

NUP’s “Divided” Conscience: One Vote for Sara, One for Razon’s Ports

By Louis ‘Barok’ C. Biraogo — February 28, 2026

MGA ka-kweba, gather round the kweba. The National Unity Party (NUP) just performed the political equivalent of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat—except the rabbit is a weathervane, the hat is Deputy Speaker Ronaldo “Ronnie” Puno’s selective blindness, and the audience is the Filipino people once again being asked to clap for the illusion of principle.

Late Wednesday night, February 25, 2026, the NUP—through its secretary-general Reginald Velasco and under the stewardship of Puno—issued a statement that could have been written by a committee of lawyers who moonlight as bookies. First they were “unlikely to support” Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment because, shockingly, they saw “no new and material evidence.” Then, sensing the backlash, Puno quickly walked it back: oh no, the party is “divided,” members will vote according to “conscience,” and they remain “open to any new evidence.”

Fugazi. Pure, grade-A fugazi. A masterclass in hedging bets so slick it makes a Manila sidewalk vendor’s “guaranteed original” Rolex look honest.

**“The Puno Pivot: A Masterclass in Spineless Acrobatics”**
*(Watch him bend over backwards without breaking a single principle!)*

The “Puno Doctrine”: Due Process for Thee, But Not for the People’s Purse

Puno and his NUP choir insist the four fresh complaints are just reheated leftovers from the 2025 batch that the Supreme Court torched on procedural grounds under the Constitution’s one-year bar rule. “No new and material evidence,” they intone, as if they are guardians of the Constitution instead of the same House that fast-tracks pork insertions, midnight budgets, and speaker-friendly resolutions faster than you can say “insertions.”

Let’s talk about that “new evidence” bar they’ve suddenly discovered. Ramil Madriaga—Sara Duterte’s former aide—has sworn under oath that he personally transported duffel bags of cash, P30 million at a pop, on her direct instructions. Drop points included a Laguna mayor’s office, the Office of the Ombudsman parking lot, and a Quezon City comedy bar. He links it to Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) and drug money funding her 2022 campaign. This is not “reheated.” This is the missing link that explains the fictitious signatories—“Mary Grace Piattos,” “Kokoy Villamin,” “Miggy Mango”—on those P612.5 million in confidential funds. This is direct, eyewitness testimony from someone who was allegedly inside the machine.

Yet Puno’s NUP looks at this and says, “Eh, not new enough.”

The same House that once impeached a Chief Justice on the flimsiest of grounds now demands forensic-level novelty when the accused is a Duterte. Funny how the evidentiary bar rises exactly when it protects the right bloodlines.

The Puppet Master’s Motivations: Graft Cases, Razon Bribes, and the 2028 Chessboard

Who is Ronaldo Puno to lecture us on evidence and conscience? This is the same man who faced graft charges in 2000 for unjustly canceling a P200-million radio communications contract as Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) secretary—charges that were later acquitted, sure, but the smell lingers like stale cigarette smoke in a karaoke bar. More recently? His very public war with Cavite Rep. Kiko Barzaga, who dared accuse NUP members of accepting bribes from billionaire Enrique Razon to prop up Speaker Martin Romualdez. Puno’s response? Multiple cyberlibel suits and calls for Barzaga’s expulsion. Not exactly the behavior of a man with nothing to hide.

NUP, let’s be honest, is widely seen as Razon-backed. Ports, contracts, influence—the usual cocktail. Puno is a Marcos ally, an Arroyo-era survivor, and a defender of Romualdez against every “demolition job.” His sudden piety for “new evidence” isn’t about the Constitution. It’s about the composition of his political and financial network. Impeaching Sara risks fracturing the fragile Marcos-Duterte detente, alienating a voter base that could decide 2028, and shining a spotlight on the very system of confidential funds, insertions, and elite protection that keeps people like Puno and Razon in the game.

The “divided party” line is even more delicious. Forty-plus members, a major bloc, suddenly too fractured for a unified stand. Convenient, no? That way, whichever way the wind blows after the hearings, every NUP congressman can later claim he was on the side of the angels. Heads they win influence, tails they claim conscience. Classic Philippine political insurance policy.

The Madriaga Elephant in the Room (That NUP Pretends Is a Mouse)

Madriaga’s affidavit isn’t some opposition fever dream. It was forwarded to the Office of the Ombudsman. It provides the “how” behind the Commission on Audit (COA) flags—the fictitious personalities, the impossible disbursement timelines, the cash that allegedly moved faster than light. House hearings on good government already exposed the rot; Madriaga just named the courier service.

Puno’s doctrine demands “compelling new evidence that fundamentally alters the factual basis.” Tell me, Deputy Speaker—if a former insider swearing he hauled the bags on the boss’s orders doesn’t qualify, what exactly would? A notarized selfie of Sara counting the money on Malacañang stationery?

The 2028 Lens: Fear, Not Principle

Sara announced her presidential bid on February 18. Days later, these complaints land. Coincidence? About as coincidental as Puno’s sudden procedural awakening. NUP’s timidity isn’t love for the Constitution—it’s raw fear of the Duterte political machine. Alienating Mindanao, the DDS base, and the “persecuted daughter” narrative could be electoral suicide in 2028.

Which brings us back to the central truth I laid out three days ago in “They Can Impeach All They Want — Sara’s 2028 Ballot Spot Is Locked”. This entire House spectacle is precisely that: spectacle. Political noise. Grist for Sara’s martyrdom mill. She will survive the committee, survive the plenary, and the Senate—needing two-thirds to convict—will do what it always does: delay, negotiate, or acquit. By the time the dust settles, Sara will be on the 2028 ballot stronger, not weaker, waving the flag of persecution while her base rallies around the woman “they” tried to destroy.

The impeachment isn’t killing her chances. It’s polishing them.

Enough of the Theater—Time for the Real Accountability

Mga ka-kweba, this is not principled politics. This is self-preservation dressed in constitutional drag. The NUP, under Puno, has chosen the path of least resistance because resistance might cost them seats, contracts, and influence.

So here is what must happen:

Every Filipino with an internet connection should track the voting record of every single NUP member when this reaches the floor. Publish the list. Make the “conscience votes” radioactive.
Civil society organizations, media, and citizen watchdogs must form a real-time impeachment transparency dashboard. No more hiding behind party “division.”
The real investigation this country needs isn’t only of Sara Duterte—it’s of the entire ecosystem of confidential funds, POGO cash, drug-tainted donations, and billionaire bagmen that lets figures like Puno decide what “new evidence” even means.

Public service is not a hedge fund. Loyalty is owed to the people who elected you, not to the warlords and tycoons who fund your campaigns or your party’s survival.

They can impeach all they want. Sara’s 2028 spot is still locked. But the Filipino people’s patience with this revolving door of fugazi conscience and elite protection? That, my friends, is running out faster than P30 million in duffel bags can disappear into the night.

Because in this circus, the clowns write the laws and the audience pays the taxes.

— Barok