Ombudsman

Francisco Comendador III faces up to six months without pay after a rival port operator accused him of letting vessels dock at a private terminal in violation of rules meant to protect the state port authority's own facilities.

Anti-graft chief Jesus Crispin Remulla says his office has filed 31 cases in the Sandiganbayan and four in regional trial courts, hired dozens of new lawyers, and is seeking a ₱7.23-billion 2027 budget to keep pace with the flood-control graft caseload.

Former House Speaker Martin Romualdez, President Marcos' first cousin, remains hospitalized under BJMP custody as the Sandiganbayan weighs his bid to avoid transfer to a Quezon City jail while he faces a ₱7.44-billion plunder case over alleged flood-control kickbacks.

Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla says courts have been "too kind" in granting bail to officials convicted of graft while their appeals are pending, and his office will check whether Sandiganbayan convicts are actually behind bars.

Sen. Loren Legarda has filed a third or fourth medical leave extension since Aug. 3 and has been absent from the impeachment trial and Senate sessions while abroad, prompting the Ombudsman to call the pattern "quite suspicious" as it investigates her and her son over an alleged P10-billion ghost solar project scheme.

Vigor Mendoza II and Teofilo Guadiz III, both former Land Transportation Office chiefs, face preventive suspension after auditors found their decisions to keep the Stradcom-operated IT system running alongside its government-built replacement cost motorists more than P13 billion since 2019.

The anti-graft court's Third Division ruled the Office of the Ombudsman violated Jed Patrick Mabilog's constitutional right to a speedy disposition of cases by taking almost seven years to file charges over a 2015 Iloilo City towing contract.

Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla says a quarter of the six-year Cebu flood-control allocation went to a single contractor and another quarter to one congressional district, as he orders lifestyle checks on DPWH engineers and a province-wide review of whether projects were ghost, substandard, or simply mis-designed.

A 15-page motion filed August 5 argues the anti-graft court's Third Division misread the evidence when it freed the former senator on bail in a Bulacan flood-control malversation case, days after the division's own chairperson dissented from the ruling.

Councilor Carmela Acebedo was sworn in as acting mayor of San Pablo, Laguna after the Ombudsman preventively suspended both Mayor Arcadio Gapangada Jr. and Vice Mayor Justin Colago, who had briefly taken over the post — the result of grave misconduct complaints the two officials filed against each other.