September 13, 2024 | 12:00am
From P2 billion to P733 million
MANILA, Philippines — She said she could function with a “zero budget.”
Vice President Sara Duterte didn’t get zero or P1 for the 2025 operations of her office. But the 139 members of the House of Representatives appropriations committee voted unanimously to cut by more than half her proposed funding.
Marikina Second District Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo, senior vice chairperson of the panel, told a news briefing yesterday that the P2-billion budget proposal had been slashed to P733.2 million.
The move was approved two days after Duterte snubbed the budget deliberations of the committee headed by Rep. Zaldy Co of Ako Bicol party-list.
Quimbo assured the Office of the Vice President that despite the P1.293-billion budget cut, jobs in the OVP would be preserved along with its social services, which will be diverted to specific agencies with such mandates, like the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
The funding cuts came from allocations for financial assistance, professional services – which is the budgeting term for consultants – and for utilities, supplies and materials and rentals/leases.
The OVP financial assistance (FA) fund of P947 million will be transferred to the Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situation program of the DSWD and the medical assistance program of the Department of Health (DOH), with the two agencies getting an almost equal share of about P646 million.
Quimbo also pointed out that the OVP was also found to maintain 10 satellite offices and two extension offices.
“We want them to return to the spending level in 2022 when the OVP maintained just one office,” she said.
Quimbo revealed that OVP’s FA fund is the source of money for those seeking burial, medical, transportation and similar aid.
She stressed that the OVP and beneficiaries of those projects could still access the same funds that would be transferred to the DSWD and DOH by communicating their requests to the two departments.
The P1.293-billion budget cut would come from the following OVP items: P200 million for supplies; P92.4 million for personnel services for consultants; P947.4 million for financial assistance; P48.3 million for rent/lease expenses, and P5 million for utility expenses.
Diversionary tactic
Co defended the House leadership against the accusations of Duterte, who opted to snub the second budget hearing of the OVP.
“It’s very clear that VP Sara’s video message is a diversionary tactic, just like her father who always wanted to divert issues confronting him. And it is because she refused to explain her confidential funds, among many others,” Co emphasized.
“The repeated pattern of diversion has apparently been the brand of the Dutertes – from the fake war on drugs, fake good governance and fake campaign against corruption,” he declared, noting that contrary to Sara’s claim of being “simple,” she holds the distinction of having the most bodyguards.
“She is the only VP in Philippine history to have the most bodyguards at more than 400. And she even had her own Vice Presidential Security Group. Never happened in the history of the Philippines,” Co revealed further.
The House official recalled that during their Aug. 27 hearing, Duterte faced the House committee alone but there were more than 100 bodyguards outside the function room.
“She even requested food for her hundreds of bodyguards but this was not eaten. Isn’t this an insult and a waste of government resources?” Co asked.
The administration stalwart likewise lamented that it was quite ironic for a lawyer like Duterte not to have known the principle of separation of powers among the three branches of government and the checks and balances each has over the other, which makes each branch a co-equal.
Sunset
“The former administration has already reached sunset so any elected official doesn’t have any right to assert like the House representatives are their subjects,” Co asserted.
“Perhaps she was absent when the principle of separation of powers was taken up in law school, where Congress is a co-equal branch of the executive and judiciary branches of government,” he jested.
Co also took offense to Duterte’s use of the phrase “I will defer to the wisdom of Congress” which shows her being intellectually dishonest because she never answered any of the questions asked by lawmakers during the first budget hearing.
“I still vividly remember last year, we talked to her and her trusted aides. She told us to push for… the confidential funds because she can justify it. It was good that we didn’t push for it, otherwise we will just be wasting taxpayers’ money for this,” he said.
