Marcoleta solicited campaign donation from co-accused in plunder raps --witness

Senator Rodante Marcoleta allegedly solicited a P75 million campaign donation from his friend, businessman Aristotle Viray, who is also a co-accused in a plunder case, an Ombudsman witness told the Sandiganbayan Third Division on Thursday. Field Investigation Bureau Director Maria Melinda Mananghaya-Henson of the Office of the Ombudsman testified during the hearing on the bail petition filed by Marcoleta, Viray, and their two other co-accused, former Anakalusugan party-list Rep. Michael Defensor and Joseph Espiritu, involving a P75 million plunder case filed against them over Marcoleta's undeclared campaign donation. "It was accused Marcoleta who actually solicited [the donation]," Henson said when asked by Sandiganbayan Third Division chairperson Karl Miranda about the defense of Viray as stated in the latter's counter affidavit submitted before the Ombudsman. Henson earlier testified that part of the donor’s tax for the P75 million campaign donation for Marcoleta given by Viray, Espiritu and Defensor was paid by Ebenezer Santos, who is an employee of Marcoleta. Likewise, Henson said that Marcoleta and his co-accused were in collusion, given that the Deeds of Donation of the Donors were all made and notarized belatedly in November 2025 even if the donation was already made in January 2025. Based on the criminal information filed by the Ombudsman prosecutors, the donor’s tax for the said P75 million campaign donation was only paid in December 2025, an indication of concealment since the donation was already made in January 2025. Marcoleta, in a television interview in November 2025, said that he received such P75 million donation from his friends but he did not declare this as campaign expenditure because it was upon the request of the donors to become anonymous. The Senator, however, said in his position paper submitted to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) that such donation was a personal fund of his, prompting the Comelec to stop the investigation. This difference in Marcoleta’s accounts was included in the basis of the Ombudsman’s probe and eventual filing of charges against Marcoleta and his co-accused. —VAL, GMA News