Rodante Marcoleta, Mike Defensor, and others barred from leaving PH over plunder, bribery complaints
Senator Rodante Marcoleta, former lawmaker Mike Defensor, and two others are barred from traveling overseas over their pending plunder and bribery complaints.
On Tuesday, May 26, the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan issued the precautionary hold departure order against Marcoleta, Defensor, Aristotle Viray, and Joseph Espiritu amid their issue on campaign funds amounting to P75 million during Marcoleta's 2025 senatorial bid.
A PHDO temporarily prevents a person under criminal investigation from leaving the Philippines while a case is still under review, even before charges are filed.
The complaint stemmed from a Commission on Elections probe into his alleged failure to disclose the funds in his Statement of Contributions and Expenditures in January 2025.
Prior to the PHDO request to the Sandiganbayan, the Ombudsman field investigators recommended charging Marcoleta, Defensor, Espiritu, and Viray with plunder and indirect bribery under Republic Act 7080 and violation of Presidential Decree No. 46, which bars public officials from receiving gifts.
They argued that Marcoleta "unjustly enriched himself" by accepting a hefty sum from three separate donations from respondents during his Senate bid.
"By taking undue advantage of his official position as then-representative of the Social Amelioration and Genuine Intervention on Poverty (SAGIP) party-list and the influence he wielded as a congressman, respondent Marcoleta unjustly enriched himself at the expense and prejudice of the Filipino people and the Republic of the Philippines when he accepted such excessive sum of money from respondents Defensor, Viray and Espiritu," the Ombudsman said.
Ombudsman investigators said Marcoleta’s alleged receipts exceeded the P50-million plunder threshold and were not declared in his SALN submitted to the Senate.
In his privilege speech, Marcoleta said that the plunder complaint was meant to "silence" him.
“The trumped-up charges filed against me and some of my friends are not merely legal accusations. They form part of a deeper and more nefarious design—to intimidate independent voices, to punish dissent, and to warn every senator that the price of asking hard questions could lead to personal damnation,” Marcoleta said on Monday.
“If the intention of these cases is to silence me, let me say this at the beginning. It has failed. I will not be silenced,” he added.
Marcoleta, who placed sixth in the 2025 senatorial polls, was recently appointed as among the co-chairpersons of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, the panel that's leading the Senate investigation into the multimillion-peso flood control scandal.
