He walks, talks, and works with a scowl clearly etched on his face. Outspoken with an annoying voice, he is unafraid to take even the most unpopular stand. But he is not always correct. He is a reputed sad sack, who usually takes the wrong side of history.
After years of being a member of the House Of Representatives, Rodente Marcoleta was elected a member of the Senate in the 2025 midterm elections. Senators identified with Tricky Tsis and the faction supporting Misfit Sara named Rodente as chair of the powerful Senate Blue Ribbon Committee despite being a newcomer in the chamber.
In the past, senators chose a veteran lawmaker as chair of that committee, which is empowered to look into the anomalies in government, especially corruption. Tricky Tsis had that tradition superseded, when he named Rodente as its chair. Hardly he warmed in his seat when Rodente got embroiled in a major controversy involving his committee.
The controversy pertains to the flood control issues, where hundreds of billions of pesos were alleged to have been either wasted or pocketed or both by unscrupulous and corrupt builders and contractors, DPWH officials, and lawmakers (senators and congressmen), who supported these projects as part of their pork barrel allocations.
As indicated by no less than President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in his recent expose, the flood control scandal was a big conspiracy among contractors, DPWH officials, and lawmakers to defraud the Filipino people of valuable resources that could have been channeled and used for social services like education, health care, defense, and disaster response, among others.
Estimates of stolen public funds arising from alleged corruption, mismanagement, and misuse of state funded flood control projects were placed at about P352 trillion over the last three years (2022-2024). The sheer magnitude of the scandal has led many civil society organizations to hold what is expected to be a huge mass protest action on September 21.
The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, which was under Rodente’s chairmanship, immediately took his committee to initiate a congressional probe “in aid of legislation” without waiting for a resolution by a senator. Incidentally, the estimates did not cover the dubious flood control projects during the presidency of Rodrigo ‘Gongdi” Duterte for the period 2016-2022.
Rodente’s committee held at least three separate days of public hearing. The second day of public hearing was pivotal because Rodente bragged shortly before its start that a major breakthrough was about to happen. This was about the affidavit of the Discaya couple that implicated at least 17 members of the House as involved in the flood control.
The affidavit of the Discayas was seen as a major operation against the House members since it did not include and involve senators, who were reported to have been behind the controversial fund insertions of P142 billion in the 2025 national budget. There were assertions that senators were also involved in the corrupt activity.
Rodente appeared to have engineered complications on the flood control controversy issue that tarnished his reputation. Rodente was later identified and discovered to have been behind efforts to turn the Discaya couple as state witnesses mainly to escape responsibility. The Discaya couple own and manage at least three firms that benefited most from flood control projects especially during Gongdi’s presidency.
This was first discovered when newly installed Senate President Tito Sotto refused to sign Rodente’s letter asking Justice Secretary Boying Remulla to place the Discayas in the Witness Protection Program (WPP) of the DoJ. There were preconditions, according to Remulla, before the Discayas could be put under the WPP and become state witnesses.
They should be the least guilty and perform some acts of restitution, which include the return of stolen state funds. Besides, Remulla claimed he never promised to Rodente they would be placed in the WPP and become state witnesses in the process.
By all means, Rodente was being perceived as a state official doing functions as an underground or unofficial “lawyer” of the Discayas. Social media was buzzed by rumors of Rodente as the main lawyer of the Discayas, as he kept on defending their interest. Rodente has not addressed those issues although ugly talks kept on swirling against him.
Rodente was defanged lately as he was replaced by Sen Panfilo Lacson as chair of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee. He was a casualty in the Senate reorganization that kicked Tricky Tsis as Senate president and put Sotto in his stead. The committee will hold its fourth public hearing with Lacson as chair.
Rodente Marcoleta is not new to controversies. When he was a House member, he made the controversial statement that the West Philippine Sea (WPS) is not ours and that it was only a “creation” of the Philippine government. He was pilloried for his pro-China stance.
At one point, he filed a bill, asking the government to get rid of the Crucifix in classrooms because it favors the Roman Catholic Church. It died a natural death, as it was not even calendared for any committee hearing. He is affiliated with the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) sect.
