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Daphne Galvez - The Philippine Star
February 11, 2026 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — The newly released draft report of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee on the alleged anomalies in flood control projects has softened its wording linking senators to anomalies in flood control projects.
Instead of recommending the filing of charges, the committee will push for subjecting Senators Joel Villanueva, Jinggoy Estrada and Francis Escudero to preliminary investigation before prosecutors in its partial report, which is targeted for presentation to the plenary next week.
This was revealed by committee chairman Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson yesterday, confirming that the three incumbent senators remain covered by the recommendations, although the language now recommends them for preliminary investigation. The revisions, he explained, were limited to clarifying terminology to avoid misinterpretation.
In the earlier draft, the phrase “recommended to be charged” was used, which Lacson said could be misconstrued by the public to mean that charges would already be filed in court.
He said the language was adjusted to specify that those named would instead be recommended “to undergo preliminary investigation (PI) or to undergo fact-finding investigation, to undergo case build-up.”
Asked if the change in wording weakened the report, Lacson replied: “No. Not at all.”
Lacson said no substantive changes were made in the draft that is now being readied for signatures.
“There’s nothing substantial. We never deviated from the original intent of our committee report that they undergo PI,” he added.
He said the same offenses remain in the recommendations, including direct bribery, plunder, malversation, violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act and violation of the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards.
At least 11 signatures are required from the panel’s 17 regular members and three ex-officio members before a committee report can be elevated to the floor.
Three senators – Sherwin Gatchalian, JV Ejercito and Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri – earlier withdrew their signatures from the draft, citing the need to further read the 400-page document.
Blue Ribbon vice chair Sen. Erwin Tulfo earlier said at least 11 senators would like to introduce amendments on the floor.
He also confirmed that the committee held an executive session on Monday with officials from the Office of the Ombudsman, the DOJ and the Anti-Money Laundering Council, but declined to disclose details.
In Baguio City, Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla said the Senate report can help advance other investigations on the issue.
Remulla said the inquiries conducted by the Senate Blue Ribbon committee have been very helpful in uncovering those involved in the flood control scandal.
“It’s where many of the facts and testimonies came out. We’ll look at the evidentiary value of everything that we can get. Our job really is to present evidence,” Remulla said at a press conference after the Office of the Ombudsman’s strategic and operational planning conference held here.
“It guides us to the proper direction, it gives us clues on what more questions to ask and it makes us think on how we can present them as evidence,” he added.
An example of an evidentiary value that can be used, he said, is the testimony of witnesses who have since become state witnesses.
That’s politics
Remulla said the recommendation of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee for preliminary investigation on incumbent senators allegedly involved in the scandal – instead of pushing for the filing of criminal charges against them – will not affect the work of the ombudsman as long as evidence is intact.
“That’s politics. There may be negotiation, compromise. But at least there are names and the records are intact,” he said. “Blue Ribbon committee records and testimonies are important.”
He said he is also not worried about possible leadership change in the Senate, especially in the chairmanship of the Blue Ribbon panel, saying any finding from the Senate only supports their work.
“Our work does not rely on the Senate,” Remulla said.
He said the next few months “will be exciting” in terms of developments in the flood control investigations as his office is currently “preparing for the big push.”
“We’re going to have a big push since cases are getting ripe. It’s really more of us shoring up the evidence and making sure that we’re able to present them properly,” he said.
Cabral files
He also said using the so-called “Cabral files,” the leaked documents of the late undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral, in cases may be tricky as authenticating the files “is a problem already.”
“I cannot give any evidentiary value to it because authenticating it is a problem already. The chain of custody is the problem here,” he said. “As a source of evidence, we’re very careful about it.”
The Cabral files supposedly show alleged budget proponents, specifically district-level figures generated under Cabral’s “parametric formula,” as well as amounts that were later “restored” after Congress allegedly made adjustments at the National Expenditure Program stage – a phase in which lawmakers are not supposed to be involved.
At the same conference, Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen warned that improper handling of mobile devices can render critical digital evidence inadmissible in court.
Mobile phones, he said, are a treasure trove of evidence as it “knows all about” a person, and anyone who knows how to exploit data can know about all the things about another person, their whereabouts and the like.
Data from calls, messages and networks often provide investigators with a more complete picture than a traditional interrogation, he said.
However, improperly handling devices, like failing to authenticate them, not preserving hash values or working directly on the original phone can compromise evidence.
“It will become inadmissible as evidence and the wealth of information that is in that device will no longer be available to convict an accused,” Leonen said, saying the SC has witnessed cases being dismissed because digital information was ruled inadmissible due to poor handling.
In a separate interview at the DOJ, Acting Justice Secretary Fredderick Vida echoed Remulla’s position that the Blue Ribbon committee draft report will “definitely help the investigations because it’s a source of information.”
“In terms of prosecution, we will study and weigh evidence. The prosecutorial prerogative is everything’s being studied. The evidence they gather may be in the committee report. They can help us,” he said. — Neil Jayson Servallos
