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Ombudsman Remulla vs. Sacred Cow Contractors: The Plunder Purge Begins

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Louis ‘Barok’ Biraogo

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Ombudsman Remulla vs. Sacred Cow Contractors: The Plunder Purge Begins
67 cong-tractors turned districts into personal ATM machines—until Remulla said “Choose business or politics.”

By Louis ‘Barok‘ C. Biraogo — July 14, 2026

LET us state the obvious, because in the theater of Philippine politics, the obvious is the first casualty: when a sitting congressman owns a construction company that bags government contracts funded by the very budget he legislates, that is not a “conflict of interest”—that is institutionalized plunder dressed in a barong. It is the public treasury being siphoned through a straw held simultaneously in the legislator’s left hand as appropriator and right hand as contractor. And for decades, we have watched this obscene pas de deux with the jaded acceptance of a people long betrayed.

“Go Into Business or Go Into Politics. You Cannot Have Both.”
Remulla’s doctrine: one barong, one hard hat — pick one, thief.

Then came Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla, who on a Saturday radio program—that most Philippine of political confessionals—uttered words so simple, so devastating in their clarity, that the political class collectively choked on its morning pan de sal: “Go into business if you want, or go into politics. Let us at least be decent people.”

Decency. Such a modest, almost quaint aspiration. Yet coming from the Ombudsman, it landed like a grenade in the halls of the Batasan, where 67 “cong-tractors”—a neologism so perfectly Filipino it deserves immediate entry into the Oxford English Dictionary—have allegedly turned legislative districts into personal construction franchises.

The arithmetic is nauseating: the ICI-DPWH investigation identified firms linked to eight lawmakers alone bagging 1,301 public works projects worth ₱92.28 billion from 2016 to 2024. That is not governance. That is a heist with committee hearings.

Tarlac 3rd District Rep. Noel “Bong” Rivera and Uswag Ilonggo party-list Rep. James “Jojo” Ang are now the unlucky poster boys of this particular chapter of the flood-control fiasco. Their alleged sin, according to Ombudsman investigators, is not some intricate web of shell companies in the British Virgin Islands—no, this is refreshingly tawdry, almost provincial in its brazenness. Ang allegedly held a documented 5% shareholding in Allencon Development Corporation well into his congressional term, signing notices to proceed in 2022 while serving as a lawmaker.

Rivera’s case is even more fragrant: a family-owned construction firm, 3G Construction and Development Corporation, co-owned with his vice-mayor wife, allegedly signing government contracts worth ₱597 million from 2018 to 2024. He did not even bother with the elaborate dummies of classic Philippine graft. Why would he? Who was going to stop him?

Enter Remulla. And let us be surgical here, because the legal architecture supporting his campaign is not some prosecutorial fever dream—it is the Constitution itself.

Article VI, Section 14 of the 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines could not be clearer: no member of Congress may be “directly or indirectly interested financially in any contract with… the Government” during his term. This is a per se prohibition. It does not require proof of a bribe. It does not require a smoking gun email. The mere existence of the financial interest is the constitutional offense. It is a structural safeguard, a prophylactic rule designed precisely because the Framers understood that the power of the purse and the power of the contract must never inhabit the same pair of hands.

This constitutional command is operationalized by Section 3(h) of Republic Act No. 3019 (the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act). And here, the Supreme Court has already done the heavy lifting for Remulla’s prosecutors. In Teves v. Sandiganbayan (G.R. No. 154182, 2004), the Court convicted a mayor under the “mere possession” clause of Section 3(h), holding that the second prong of the provision—prohibiting any interest “prohibited by the Constitution or any law”—operates independently of the “intervention” clause. The accused’s attempted divestment to his wife failed because, under the Civil Code, conjugal property meant the interest remained direct. Sound familiar, Rep. Rivera? Your wife is your vice-mayor. The Teves Court has already rejected your defense before you even filed your counter-affidavit.

In Caballero v. Sandiganbayan (2007), the Court again affirmed that a mayor who approved a contract awarded to a business registered in his wife’s name was properly charged under Section 3(h). The spousal-nominee structure—that tired, predictable, almost insulting dodge—did not defeat the charge. The Supreme Court has drawn the line in jurisprudential cement: you cannot hide your greed behind your marriage certificate.

And then there is Republic Act No. 6713 (the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees), which in Section 9 requires divestment within 60 days of assuming office. Ang’s shareholding allegedly persisted for nearly a year after his term began. That is not a technicality. That is a year of checks being written to a company in which the legislator approving the budget had a direct stake. Even a first-year law student could draft that information in twenty minutes.

This is why Assistant Ombudsman Mico Clavano’s statement—that only ownership need be shown, not actual benefit from a specific contract—is not prosecutorial adventurism. It is the correct, Teves-anchored reading of the law. For members of Congress, the Constitution itself supplies the prohibition that satisfies Section 3(h)’s second prong. The circle is closed. The legal cage is locked. All that remains is the political will to turn the key.

And Remulla is turning it. The Ombudsman has publicly confirmed that the complaints have advanced from confidential fact-finding to formal preliminary investigation, where due process rights attach and respondents must answer under oath. This is not a fishing expedition; it is a methodical march toward the Sandiganbayan. He has ordered lifestyle checks on 26 lawmakers. He has warned that 12 to 15 more “low-hanging fruit” cases are coming. He has explicitly extended the probe to mayors, resisting any claim that this is merely a surgical strike against politically convenient targets.

The critics, of course, are already howling. They accuse him of a “trial by radio,” ignoring that preliminary investigations are formal proceedings where counter-affidavits and documentary evidence will determine probable cause, not Saturday morning soundbites. They whisper about “selective justice,” conveniently forgetting that the Ombudsman has acknowledged Senate-side names—Escudero, Villanueva, Estrada, Revilla, Romualdez—and that complex cases require methodical build-up, not simultaneous press releases. These are the same tired deflections of every cornered political class since the Marcos era: attack the prosecutor, ignore the evidence, change the subject.

What Remulla has done is more than launch a few cases. He has articulated a governing philosophy: politics and business must be separate realms. This is revolutionary in a country where dynasties treat the state as a family corporation and where the line between public trust and private profit has been so thoroughly erased that an entire generation of voters cannot remember when it existed.

The recommendations flow naturally from this moment:

First, Congress must immediately pass a comprehensive Beneficial Ownership Transparency Act that mandates real-time disclosure of all corporate interests held by public officials and their immediate families, with criminal penalties for nominee arrangements and dummy structures. The SEC’s General Information Sheets must become weapons of accountability, not shields for the corrupt.

Second, the Ombudsman must continue its aggressive expansion. The rumored 67 cong-tractors cannot be whittled down to two sacrificial lambs. Every one of those 1,301 contracts worth ₱92.28 billion must be traced to a living, breathing beneficiary. If the evidence leads to House leadership or Malacañang itself, so be it. Remulla’s statement that he has seen no evidence implicating the President is a factual observation, not a political promise.

Third, the Sandiganbayan must be resourced and prepared for the tsunami. The judiciary cannot be the bottleneck that defeats this campaign. If the Ombudsman files 30 cases, the anti-graft court must have the divisions, the budget, and the institutional spine to try them without the customary decade of delay that converts prosecution into a de facto acquittal.

Fourth, the public must awaken from its learned helplessness. The cynicism that says “lahat naman sila corrupt” is not wisdom; it is surrender. The very existence of these cases, pushed forward by an Ombudsman with clear legal doctrine and apparent institutional backing, is proof that the system can work when courageous individuals make it work.

To the youth of this country, who have inherited a republic mortgaged to dynastic interests and infrastructure kickbacks, this moment offers something rare: a demonstration that the law is not merely a decorative parchment but a living instrument that can strike down the powerful. Remulla is showing you that the Constitution’s declaration—”public office is a public trust”—is not a dead slogan but a justiciable standard.

The flood-control scandal is not about flood control. It is about a political class that sees public funds as a family ATM, that legislates budgets in the morning and signs contracts in the afternoon, that mouths platitudes about “public service” while calculating profit margins. Rivera and Ang are not outliers; they are the logical endpoint of a system that has tolerated, enabled, and even celebrated the fusion of business and politics.

Remulla’s doctrine—choose business or politics, because you cannot have both—must become the permanent architecture of Philippine governance. Anything less is an invitation to the next scandal, the next budget inflated by congressional insertions, the next generation of politicians who learn that the path to wealth runs not through entrepreneurship or professional excellence, but through the simple expedient of winning an election and printing a contractor’s business card.

The Ombudsman has lit a match. It is the responsibility of every citizen, every honest public servant, and every institution that still believes in this broken republic to ensure it becomes a conflagration that cleanses, rather than a flicker that merely illuminates the rot before being extinguished by the powerful.

There is hope. For the first time in a long time, there is hope. And hope, backed by the full force of the law, is a dangerous thing to those who have built their fortunes on its absence.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas. Mabuhay ang pananagutan.

— Barok

Key Citations

A. Legal & Official Sources

B. News Reports

  • “Remulla Warns Conflicted Pols.” Daily Tribune, 14 July 2026, tribune.net.ph/2026/07/11/remulla-warns-conflicted-pols.
  • “ICI, DPWH recommend filing of plunder, graft, other charges against 8 ‘congtractors’.” BusinessMirror, 27 Nov. 2025, businessmirror.com.ph/2025/11/27/ici-dpwh-recommend-filing-of-plunder-graft-other-charges-against-8-congtractors-2/.
  • Salonga, Kaxandra. “Ombudsman to have Noel Rivera, Jojo Ang answer conflict of interest allegations.” ABS-CBN News, 2 July 2026, http://www.abs-cbn.com/news/nation/2026/7/2/noel-rivera-jojo-ang-to-answer-conflict-of-interest-allegations-1630.
Louis ‘Barok‘ C. Biraogo

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