It's happened again. Another Filipino politician who has been ousted from his office has stripped his office bare leaving nothing for his successor. This time it is disgrace Senator and former Senate president pro tempore Jinggoy Estrada. Despite being behind bars awaiting trial on plunder charges Estrada was able to organize his men to do his bidding and remove everything but the walls, ceiling and floor of his former office.
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| https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2026/10/07/2561459/jinggoy-stripping-office-its-standard-practice |
Detained Sen. Jinggoy Estrada yesterday denied there was anything wrong with stripping bare the office of the Senate president pro tempore, calling it “standard practice.”
Estrada issued a statement yesterday in response to news reports that he ordered the office he would vacate and turn over to his successor Sen. Vicente Sotto III stripped bare of all fixtures, tiles and even the toilet, making it look like a construction site.
Estrada claimed his office had notified Sotto’s office that “the fixtures, furnishings and materials in the office would be brought along to the senator’s new office.”
He said the items removed from the office – like floor tiles, glass panels, lighting fixtures and cabinets – “were acquired using personal funds, as the budget provided by the Senate was insufficient to cover all the expenses incurred.”
Estrada said no public funds were used in removing all the fixtures from the office.
“It bears noting that standard practice in the Senate is for the senator occupying an office to renovate the space based on the budget provided, with any expense beyond that shouldered entirely by the occupant. Let it be stressed, in no uncertain terms, that not a single centavo of public funds was wasted,” Estrada said.
“In fact, the Senate will bear no cost whatsoever for office supplies and materials, as most, if not all, of those used in the previous office will simply be re-used in the new one. If anything, this practice reflects prudence and efficiency, not controversy,” he added.
Estrada asked that the “routine administrative transition… not be unnecessarily politicized, sensationalized or made into a manufactured controversy where none exists.”
Sen. Panfilo Lacson came to the defense of Sotto, as he belied Estrada’s claim it was standard practice to turn over a bare office to the successor.
“Poor Senate President Pro Tempore Tito Sotto. Using a monobloc table and chair and gas lamp,” Lacson said, tweeting an AI-generated photo of Sotto writing on a plastic table beside a lampshade.
“I take exception to the statement pertaining to the state or condition of the same Pro Tempore office that I turned over to Sen. Estrada in 2022. Nothing was removed nor destroyed, precisely because government funds were used when I refurbished it when it was turned over to me,” Lacson said.
The excuse Estrada gives is that he spent his own personal funds furnishing the office because the Senate dud nor provide a sufficient budget. Immediately several questions arise:
1. Were there no fixtures in the office before Estrada assumed it in 2024?
2. What state was the office in that the budget provided was not enough for Estrada to repair what needed to be repaired?
3. How will floor tiles and other fixtures be reused in a new office when their removal necessarily entails damage that makes them unusable?
4. How did no one realize this was happening until it was over? Did Estrada's men work during the dead of night? Ripping up floor tile is a noisy job requiring a jackhammer and other tools like a wheelbarrow and a crowbar. No notice sent by Estrada can excuse turning a Senate office into a demolition site.
5. Most importantly when exactly do repairs paid out of pocket and which are permanently incorporated into someone else's property become not the property of the one who paid for them?
Estrada claims "that not a single centavo of public funds was wasted" in removing the fixtures, yet money from the Senate budget will certainly be used to make the office usable once more. That makes his claim untenable rhetoric.
A similar scenario happened in 2019 when defeated Cebu City Mayor Osmeña left office. He stripped everything bare claiming he had paid for it all. Criminal charges were filed and tossed out by the court.
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| https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/07/11/22/ex-cebu-mayor-cleared-of-raps-for-leaving-office-bare |
The Office of the Ombudsman has dismissed the criminal complaints against former Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña for leaving his successor with a bare office and an allegedly missing city seal in 2019.
In a copy of the resolution released to the media on Monday, the Ombudsman said the complaints were junked due to a lack of probable cause.
Osmeña, his executive assistants, department heads, and security guards had faced graft, theft, and malicious mischief charges for allegedly taking government property that belonged to the mayor’s office.
But the Ombudsman noted that Osmeña followed the procedure in restoring the office at the 8th floor of the Cebu City Hall to its condition in 2016 prior to his term.
It also found that the former mayor spent personal funds for the office's rehabilitation after the city council denied his request for a P2-million budget.
“There is insufficient evidence showing that public respondents acted with manifest partiality, evident bad faith or gross inexcusable negligence,” the resolution read.
The missing seal was also taken by the complainant, as reflected in the security guard’s logbook.
“The truth is finally out—former Tomas Osmeña was only taking what was his, and the approved plan was to restore the mayor’s office to its prior condition in 2016 when mayor Osmeña took office,” said his lawyer Amado Ligutan.
In 2019, then incoming mayor Edgardo Labella slammed Osmeña for leaving the office without tiles, tables, ceilings, and dividers. Labella had to work at the vice mayor’s office until renovations were completed.
The legal reasoning appears sound but does not answer question 5. Was the Cebu City Mayor's office in such a bad state of repair that 2 million pesos needed to be spent on it? Certainly the office was not left in the manner in which it was received. Perhaps Osmeña and Estrada could be sued for not replacing the new fixings with those that were initially removed. But why would anyone hang on to those old tiles and such?
Even accepting the claims of both Estrada and Osmeña that they personally paid for the improvements, dismantling permanent improvements in a government office raises a basic question of proportionality and common sense. If the result is to leave a public office unusable and destroy or severely diminish the value of the improvements, the conduct is difficult to characterize as ordinary administrative housekeeping.
What needs to happen is the Congress needs to fashion a law concerning this matter. Hash out all the details and make it air tight. They need to legally define when repairs paid out of pocket and incorporated into government property cease to be owned by the one who paid for said repairs. What exactly constitutes government property when a private individual uses his own funds to improve it?
An ideal law would propose that any permanent improvement to a government office, regardless of funding source, becomes government property upon installation, with the outgoing official entitled only to remove movable furniture and equipment that can be taken without damage.
Public office is temporary. Government property is not.
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