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You don’t need to be an investigative journalist to recognize the pattern followed by Romualdez’s associates. They are hard to ignore once you see them.
People who have gone through safety training know how important it is to break habits. The more predictable your behavior, the easier it is for someone to track your movements, anticipate your next move, or identify your weaknesses.
This is easier said than done, of course. Most of us, after all, build routines without realizing it. We take the same route to work, order from the same restaurants, and fall back into routines because repetition makes life easier. That’s why someone’s digital footprint can often reveal more about them than they intend.
The same logic applies to money and possessions. A single property purchase or business transaction may not tell us much on its own. But a clear picture begins to emerge when such transactions occur repeatedly, involving the same people, companies or networks.
Hello! I am Jodesz GavilanRappler’s senior editorial researcher. In the past year, I have worked on a series of observations to trace the multi-million dollar network of assets linked to Leyte Representative and former Speaker of the House Martin Romualdez.
My latest piece traces a farm in Greenwich, Connecticut, in the United States that was purchased for $6.9 million (P425 million) in September 2022 by a company associated with Andrew Casiño, a close business associate and brother of Romualdez.
You can read the full report here if you subscribe to Rappler+.
Some comments following the publication said that the transaction was purely coincidental, and that Casiño’s purchase should not be connected to Romualdez. Those words ignore how such investigations work.
What caught my attention while reporting on the Connecticut scene was how everything became clear after several months of work that uncovered Romualdez’s links.
It shows the same characters and plot. The transaction involves a company whose member or leader is a close business associate or relative of the Romualdez fraternity. The diagram is so clever that you can simply change the names of the entities or individuals involved, and it will still lead to the former speaker of Parliament.
For example, Golden Pheasant Holdings bought a mansion in South Forbes Park in Makati City for 1.665 billion shillings.. The president of the company is a lawyer Jose Raulito Paraswho sat on the boards of businesses owned by Romualdez, as well as brothers of the Upsilon fraternity.
It is similar to the activity it involves villa in the exclusive community of Sotogrande in Spainwhich was purchased by a Singapore-registered company called CECIL PROPERTY PTE LTD in January 2024 for at least 6.5 million euros (P444.5 million). The company attached to CECIL can be traced back to Paras.
Activities involving Casiño take the design a step further. All Connecticut property and other property in Massachusetts were transferred through liquidation documents to companies registered in Delaware in July 2025.
Delaware, of course, is well known for allowing a certain amount of anonymity that can make it difficult to determine who controls a company.
Any of these activities can be self-explanatory. But you don’t have to be an investigative journalist to spot a pattern. They are hard to ignore once you see them.
Schedules have a way of manifesting themselves through repetition. Many people repeat the same ways, the same habits, and the same behaviors because it is easier.
It turns out that government officials and their multi-million pesos assets can fall into the habit as well.
Discovering those processes, however, requires the kind of sustained reporting that stays on track despite political turmoil. If you value journalism that exposes hidden patterns in plain sight, consider supporting our work by subscribing to Rappler+! – Rappler.com
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