3 hours ago
2
Upgrade to High-Speed Internet for only ₱1499/month!
Enjoy up to 100 Mbps fiber broadband, perfect for browsing, streaming, and gaming.
Visit Suniway.ph to learn
Cristina Chi - Philstar.com
May 15, 2026 | 4:17pm
MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano called on the Ombudsman to suspend National Bureau of Investigation Director Melvin Matibag over the May 13 gunfire at the Senate, arguing that the agency’s top official is "more a suspect" than the Senate security chief.
Cayetano made the appeal in a Facebook livestream after Ombudsman Boying Remulla ordered the preventive suspension of Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Roberto "Mao" Aplasca, who fired the first warning shot before the exchange of gunfire inside the Senate complex.
"Let me just appeal to the Ombudsman: suspend also the NBI director because he is more a suspect than General Mao dito," Cayetano said at a press conference Friday, May 15. "We do not want to set a bad example in the independent investigation, and we do not want to put the Senate in harm's way."
Cayetano said the suspension of Matibag should cover not only the director but also the NBI’s head of transnational crimes, whom he said had been named by the bureau’s confidential agent arrested during the incident.
The Senate president was referring to lawyer Jerome Bomediano, the person who Sen. Imee Marcos claimed was namedropped by a "confidential agent" arrested inside the Senate premises during the chaos.
Matibag, however, has insisted that the NBI conducted no assault on the Senate and had no order to arrest Sen. Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court.
The NBI director said his agency only deployed a small team of four to six people to the adjacent Government Service Insurance System building at the request of GSIS president Wick Veloso to secure the premises, and that none of them entered the Senate.
The Palace has echoed the same account, with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. saying no state forces fired the shots and no order was given to arrest Dela Rosa that night.
Ombudsman seeks Senate CCTV
The Ombudsman, however, said its priority is to obtain CCTV footage from the Senate, which has jurisdiction over the surveillance recordings.
The CCTV would naturally fall under the Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms, which Aplasca headed before his preventive suspension.
A preventive suspension order is not a punishment in itself. It is meant to preserve the integrity of evidence that may be in a public official’s possession or control while an investigation is ongoing.
"The Office is one with the Filipino people in wanting to get to the bottom of the incident," the Ombudsman said.
"This is where we start, at the place where it occurred," it added.
Anger over Aplasca suspension
Cayetano said the Ombudsman had a duty to inform the chamber about the suspension order against Aplasca so senators could choose his replacement before the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte opens Monday.
The Senate president also defended Aplasca’s decision to fire his gun into the air Wednesday night. He said the action was taken only after Senate security saw armed men in full tactical gear, carrying long firearms, approach the Senate building without coordinating with Senate security.
The Philippine National Police, in its initial assessment, said spent bullets recovered at the scene appeared to have come from inside the Senate.
PNP chief Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr. placed the total rounds fired at no fewer than 30, with the Senate’s Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms accounting for most of them.
Cayetano has said OSAA fired 27 rounds while the NBI side discharged five.
While he said he believes the president had ordered the NBI to stand down, Cayetano suggested that someone below Marcos overrode that instruction.
He laid the blame for the May 13 chaos squarely on Matibag, citing the supposedly uncoordinated presence of NBI agents in the area that night.
Cayetano said the Senate would not conduct its own probe of the gunfire for now, deferring to the Ombudsman’s independent investigation. But he said the process would not be credible while only Senate officials face suspension.
Dela Rosa slipped out of the Senate at around 2:30 a.m. on May 14, hours after the gunfire.
CCTV footage from the night of May 13 has yet to be publicly released. — with Ian Laqui
