Former House Speaker and Leyte 1st District Representative Martin Romualdez has asserted that the initial sworn statement of former Senate witness Orly Guteza—which implicated him in an alleged cash-for-ghost-projects scheme—was fundamentally defective long before its official retraction.
Legal representatives for Romualdez argued that the Ombudsman cannot treat Guteza’s original claims as credible while viewing his recantation with skepticism. They emphasized that the initial document was disowned by its supposed notary, declared falsified by a Manila court, and directly refuted by key individuals named as corroborating witnesses.
In a Supplemental Counter-Affidavit filed on August 20, Romualdez emphasized that Guteza’s original assertions were never independently verified by judicial authorities, noting:
“Even during the proceedings for the issuance of a Precautionary Hold Departure Order before the Sandiganbayan, complainant did not present Guteza for personal examination, re-swearing, or independent verification.”
The filing further maintained:
“More fundamentally, the Guteza Recantation Salaysay does not introduce doubt into an otherwise stable and independently corroborated account.”
Detailing the evidentiary defects of the primary document, Romualdez stated in his submission:
“As already exhaustively demonstrated in my Counter-Affidavit, the Original Guteza Salaysay was already afflicted with substantial and independent defects before Guteza ever recanted it: the supposed notary expressly denied under oath having notarized or signed it; the document was subsequently treated by the Executive Judge of Branch 18 of the RTC of Manila as a falsified document; and M. Bunagan and Colesio—persons Guteza himself identified as capable of corroborating his narrative—executed sworn statements contradicting him and denying the supposed deliveries.”
A National Bureau of Investigation forensic examination in 2025 confirmed that the notary’s signature was forged, leading the Manila Regional Trial Court to clear the attorney and order a deeper investigation into the falsification.
Romualdez’s latest pleading also highlighted Guteza’s new statements regarding how the initial narrative was allegedly fabricated during political meetings:
“Guteza narrates that the supposed delivery narrative was raised during a meeting with former Congressman Mike Defensor, and that, despite his lack of personal knowledge of the matters being proposed, he was repeatedly pressed to adopt them. He further states that Defensor’s son-in-law thereafter reduced the proposed narrative into an affidavit on a laptop, and that sitting Senator Rodante Marcoleta subsequently reviewed and revised the document.
According to Guteza, it was in the course of that process that Sen. Marcoleta described his proposed account as the ‘missing link’ that would connect me to the alleged deliveries.”
Addressing the weight of these revelations, the defense paper concluded:
“These details do not compel automatic acceptance of every accusation Guteza now makes. They do, however, render his subsequent account capable of examination and testing, and prevent his former account from rationally being treated as a stable and independent evidentiary foundation without confronting the circumstances he now describes.”