Another Philippine senator arrested on allegations of large-scale plunder

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Another Philippine senator was arrested on allegations of plunder Monday, becoming the latest member of the upper legislative chamber to be taken into custody in more than a month over suspicion of large-scale corruption.

Sen. Rodante Marcoleta, who denies committing any wrongdoing, was taken into police custody at the Sandiganbayan special anti-graft court in suburban Quezon city where he went with his lawyers to question the charges against him and seek a delay in the enforcement of his arrest.

“Let’s respect that,” Marcoleta, a 71-year-old lawyer, told reporters outside the courtroom, referring to the court’s decision to order his arrest based on a preliminary finding on his case. He was later whisked away by police officers. A plunder charge does not allow for bail.

Marcoleta belongs to Iglesia ni Cristo, or Church of Christ, which staged a three-day rally by more than 15,000 members in a democracy shrine along metropolitan Manila’s busiest main road to protest the filing of charges against him and his impending arrest. The rally sparked a huge traffic jam.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. cancelled two official engagements outside his office Tuesday due to alarm over the protest by the religious group, which known for its ability to organize huge rallies.

The Office of the Ombudsman, a special anti-graft prosecutor, said it filed the plunder charge against Marcoleta last week for receiving 75 million pesos ($1.2 million) in what were supposed to be campaign contributions from three supporters that he did not declare in his assets statement as required by law.

Early last month, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, a political ally of Marcoleta, was arrested and detained also on a non-bailable charge of plunder for allegedly pocketing a huge kickback in a flood-control project.

Estrada, 63, has strongly denied allegations mainly by a former government public works engineer, that he received more than 570 million pesos ($9.3 million) in kickbacks from flood control projects.

Marcoleta and Estrada were supporters of former President Rodrigo Duterte and his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte. The 24-member Senate, acting as an impeachment court, was scheduled later Monday to start the trial of Sara Duterte, who was impeached by an overwhelming vote of the House of Representatives in May.

She has denied committing the alleged high crimes, including amassing undeclared wealth and publicly threatening to have the president assassinated.

A third senator and loyal ally of the Dutertes, Ronald dela Rosa, has gone into hiding after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest as a co-perpetrator of the former president in the killings of mostly poor suspects in bloody anti-drugs crackdown overseen by Duterte.

Dela Rosa was the national police chief of Duterte who first enforced the bloody crackdowns. The former president was arrested last year on orders of the ICC and flown to the Netherlands, where he will face trial on Nov. 30 for alleged crimes against humanity.