Martin Romualdez associate buys Forbes Park house for P1.67 billion

A house in the posh Forbes Park village in Makati was bought in 2023 for P1.67 billion by a company that ultimately links to Leyte 1st District Representative Martin Romualdez, who was House speaker at the time, Rappler has found.

Golden Pheasant Holdings Corporation acquired the house and lot at 30 Tamarind Road, Forbes Park, for P1.665 billion, the company declared in its audited financial statement for 2023 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The property measures 3,196 square meters.

Golden Pheasant’s president and 99.9% shareholder is lawyer Jose Raulito Paras, according to the October 2025 General Information Sheet the company filed with the SEC.

Paras, a senior partner at the law firm Padernal & Paras, is Romualdez’s fraternity brother in Upsilon Sigma Phi. Paras also served as an officer in at least two Romualdez-owned companies: Media Serbisyo Production Corporation and Benguet Corporation.

He sat on the board of Benguet Corporation starting in August 2018, but resigned in August 2023 due to “personal reasons and commitments.”

Rappler has reached out to the camp of Romualdez for comment on this story. We will update this once we receive a response.

Rappler has been looking into the Tamarind property as part of its lifestyle check on Romualdez, who has been accused of involvement in corruption in infrastructure projects — allegations he has denied, even as he resigned as House speaker in 2025 to give way to an investigation “without undue influence.”

The lifestyle check has found that Romualdez also has links to lavish properties in Spain and the United States. Paras is also the identified sole officer of a company that bought a multimillion-euro sprawling mansion in the upscale Sotogrande resort enclave in Spain.

Before the Senate blue ribbon committee hearing on Monday, January 19, Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson tagged this property as Romualdez’s and alleged that controversial contractor Pacifico “Curlee” Discaya was a front. Romualdez quickly denied this.

Rappler now knows the circumstances of the purchase based on filed SEC documents. The Discaya link was established by Lacson’s two witnesses who saw the contractor overseeing the renovation after Golden Pheasant bought the property.

Paras’ previous property transaction

Golden Pheasant was incorporated only in March 2023, and before the year ended the company had acquired the Forbes Park property, as well as a P171-million three-bedroom unit at a “bespoke” residences condominium in Bonifacio Global City (BGC) in Taguig, plus three basement parking lots, for a collective amount of P1.8 billion.

Rappler has observed a pattern of companies with links to Romualdez being incorporated just months before the purchase or transfer of lavish properties. This pattern appeared in both the Sotogrande mansion in Spain and another property in Massachusetts, USA. Officers of these companies, who effectively serve as intermediaries in the transactions, are linked to the former House speaker either as fraternity brothers in Upsilon or as former business associates.

Golden Pheasant shares the same Makati address as Braavos Holdings OPC, a company also owned by Paras. This is also the address of Paras’ law firm.

Braavos is a listed shareholder of Cecil Property PTE LTD, the firm that purchased the 2,019-square-meter Sotogrande residence marketed for between €6.5 million and €6.9 million, or roughly P444.5 million to P471.8 million.

Like Golden Pheasant, Braavos was set up in September 2023, just four months before Cecil Property purchased the Sotogrande property in January 2024. Cecil Property, meanwhile, was incorporated in Singapore in the same month as the purchase.

A similar pattern appears in the US

In the US, a company called Ammy Inc. received a property transfer from Romualdez in July 2025, two months after it was registered as a foreign corporation in Massachusetts. Lawyer and fellow Upsilon member Andrew Casiño is listed as president of the newly formed corporation.

Documents show Romualdez transferred a Dover, Massachusetts, property valued at $2.44 million, or about P130.5 million, to Ammy Inc. for only $1. 

A source told Rappler that Casiño and Romualdez were batchmates in the fraternity.

Like the lawyers tied to the Forbes Park and Sotogrande properties, Casiño has also sat on the board of Benguet Corporation, a Romualdez-owned firm, since June 2020.

Other Golden Pheasant properties

In 2024, Golden Pheasant bought another three-bedroom unit in the same BGC condominium, but on a different floor, for P148 million. It also purchased two more basement parking lots worth a combined P11.8 million.

By the time the company filed its 2024 financial statement, its assets were worth P2.077 billion, all attributable to three real estate properties: the Forbes Park house and lot and the two condominium units in BGC. The company declared P2.028 billion in liabilities.

The BGC condominium overlooks the exclusive Manila Golf, where Romualdez is president, according to the latest SEC filing from April 2025.

The Forbes Park mansion deal comes amid heightened scrutiny of Romualdez, who has become a central figure in controversies surrounding the 2025 national budget and flood control funds.

His resignation as House speaker in September 2025, at the height of the flood control scandal, underscored growing public attention on his wealth and business dealings.

In November 2025, the Independent Commission for Infrastructure and the Department of Public Works and Highways urged the Ombudsman to file  plunder, graft, and bribery charges against Romualdez. Months later, however, the case remains stalled. – Rappler.com