Ombudsman Remulla: Romualdez cannot have personal staff with him in jail

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Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla on Friday said they will verify the information concerning former Speaker and Leyte Representative Martin Romualdez being accompanied by a personal staff while in detention in a Quezon City jail over a P7.4-billion plunder charge.

Remulla made the announcement a day after BJMP Jail Warden Lourdes Pacion told the Sandiganbayan that a personal staff of former Speaker is staying with the lawmaker in his cell in the New Quezon City jail.

Pacion made the testimony during the hearing on the status of Romualdez's detention amid allegations of columnist Ramon Tulfo that the former speaker is able to leave the BJMP facility as he pleases in an ambulance.

Tulfo, however, has since retracted on his claims.

“To remove any doubt about how things are going, we will do surprise visits to jail. We will visit Payatas, at any given hour, whether it be morning or it's midnight, just to check on everything and make sure that all the rules are being followed,” Remulla said at a press conference.

“We will have to validate it (Romualdez having a personal staff. We don't want special treatment for anybody. Him having a PA, ngayon ko lang narinig iyon eh. Kaya lalo ako nagagalit ‘pag ganun e. Hindi puwede ‘yun. (I learned about it only now ... that's why I'm mad about it and it is not allowed) Blindsided ako run,” Remulla added.

Interior and Local Government Secretary Jonvic Remulla, the Ombudsman’s brother, earlier said that the personal staff is a visitor who comes in and out on certain hours only.

Ombudsman Remulla then maintained that a person deprived of liberty having a personal staff by his bedside is not allowed and is an unlawful favor.

“Bawal yan. That’s favoring somebody,” the Ombudsman said.

(That is not allowed.)

Romualdez is one of the accused in the P7.4 billion plunder charge alongside former House appropriations panel chairperson Zaldy Co of Ako Bicol party-list, his personal assistant Joselyn Tragua Sereño, and Felicito Cristobal Guevarra, president of Samchan Foreign Exchange Corporation over their alleged involvement in the flood control mess.

The former Speaker has maintained that he is innocent of the charges and is ready to defend himself by taking the witness stand once the defense presents its evidence in his bail hearing. — RSJ, GMA News