[Inside the Newsroom] Properties, patterns maintain main again to Martin Romualdez 

You do not should be an investigative journalist to acknowledge a sample adopted by Romualdez’s associates. They’re tough to disregard when you see them.

Individuals who’ve undergone safety coaching know the way essential it’s to interrupt routines. The extra predictable your habits are, the better it’s for somebody to trace your actions, anticipate the next step, or establish your vulnerabilities. 

That is simpler mentioned than carried out, after all. Most of us, in any case, construct routines with out realizing it. We take the identical path to work, order from the identical eating places, and return to acquainted habits as a result of repetition makes life simpler. That’s why an individual’s digital footprint can typically reveal extra about them than they intend.

The identical logic applies to cash and property. A single property buy or enterprise transaction could not inform us a lot by itself. However a clearer image begins to emerge when comparable transactions occur repeatedly, involving the identical individuals, corporations, or networks.

Hello! I’m Jodesz Gavilan, Rappler’s lead editorial researcher. Over the previous yr, I’ve labored on a collection of investigations tracing a community of multi-million-dollar US properties linked to Leyte Consultant and former Home speaker Martin Romualdez. 

My newest piece traces an property in Greenwich, Connecticut, in the USA that was bought for $6.9 million (P425 million) in September 2022 by an organization related to Andrew Casiño, a detailed enterprise affiliate and fraternity brother of Romualdez.

You’ll be able to learn the complete report right here for those who subscribe to Rappler+.

A number of the feedback following the publication argued that the transaction was merely a coincidence, and that Casiño’s buy shouldn’t be linked to Romualdez. That rhetoric overlooks how investigations like these work.

What caught my consideration whereas reporting on the Connecticut property was how acquainted all the pieces felt after months of doing the work that uncovered the hyperlinks to Romualdez. 

It exhibits the identical solid of characters and plot. A transaction entails an organization whose member or chief is a detailed enterprise affiliate or fraternity brother of Romualdez. The sample is so brazen you could simply change the names of entities or people concerned, and but it’s going to nonetheless result in the previous Home speaker. 

For instance, Golden Pheasant Holdings Company bought a mansion in South Forbes Park in Makati Metropolis for P1.665 billion. The corporate’s president is lawyer Jose Raulito Paras, who sat on the boards of Romualdez-owned companies, and likewise an Upsilon fraternity brother.

It’s the identical because the transaction involving a mansion within the unique Sotogrande group in Spain, which was bought by a Singapore-registered firm named CECIL PROPERTY PTE LTD in January 2024 for a minimum of 6.5 million euros (P444.5 million). A agency connected to CECIL may be traced again to Paras. 

The transactions involving Casiño take the sample a step additional. Each the Connecticut property and one other property in Massachusetts have been transferred by way of quitclaim deeds to corporations registered in Delaware in July 2025. 

Delaware, after all, is well-known for permitting a level of anonymity that may make it tough to find out who in the end controls an organization.

Any considered one of these transactions may be defined away by itself. However you don’t should be an investigative journalist to acknowledge a sample. They’re tough to disregard when you see them. 

Routines have a method of unveiling themselves by means of repetition. Most individuals repeat the identical routes, the identical habits, and the identical behaviors as a result of it’s simpler. 

It seems that authorities officers with their tens of millions of pesos price of property can fall into routines too.

Recognizing these routines, nonetheless, requires the type of sustained reporting that follows trails regardless of the loopy political chaos. Should you worth journalism that uncovers patterns hidden in plain sight, take into account supporting our work by subscribing to Rappler+! – Rappler.com

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