The ugly rift between Vice President Sara Duterte and the House of Representatives has descended into a messy battle of soundbites and a complex piece of political theater.
But beyond the insult-filled spectacle are legitimate issues that remain unaddressed, particularly on how the country’s second highest official handles public funds.
Rappler enumerates the valid questions that House lawmakers raised during the second round of budget deliberations for the Office of the Vice President (OVP) on Tuesday, September 10.
How was the P73 million in disallowed confidential expenses spent?
The biggest budget-related issue thrown at Duterte that just wouldn’t die is her use of confidential funds in 2022.
It’s already unfortunate that the public only belatedly learned about those secret funds a year after the budget department, upon the Office of the President’s approval, released the P125 million to the OVP (the budget document prepared by her predecessor Leni Robredo which Duterte used in 2022 didn’t have a line item on confidential funds). What’s worse is the bombshell revelation that the money was all spent within an 11-day period in December 2022.
Where did the money go? It’s a question that Duterte has repeatedly dodged, sticking to generalizations.
But a notice of disallowance (ND) issued by the Commission on Audit (COA) to the OVP in August showed that Duterte has been asked to return P73.287 million out of the P125 million.
State auditors said the OVP did not submit documents to prove that the money was used for successful surveillance or information gathering.
The breakdown of the disallowed funds is as follows: P34.857 million for payment of various goods, P24.9 million for payment of medicines, P10 million for reward payment, and P3.5 million for tables, chairs, desktop computers, and printers.
State auditors must have been scratching their heads: how are these Information and Communication Technology materials related to confidential operations?
The notice of disallowance is not yet final, and NDs rarely enforced because agencies appeal them to eternity. But as of the second round of House budget deliberations for the OVP on September 10, the order stands because Duterte has yet to appeal the decision. She has six months, or until February 2025 to do so.
How can the OVP justify its socioeconomic programs not being a duplicate of other government agencies’ projects?
For 2025, the OVP is seeking P2.037 billion in new general appropriations, most of which would go to “socio-economic program delivery” if approved.
These projects include:
- medical assistance
- burial assistance
- free transportation
- disaster relief operations
- Mag Negosyo Ta ‘Day (entrepreneurial program for women and LGBTQ+ members)
- PagbaBAGo campaign (distribution of school supplies and dental kits)
- educational assistance
- wheelchair program
Her critics have since been asking: isn’t this a duplication of the services that other agencies have already been providing?
“I would like to be clarified why the Office of the Vice President is giving the same assistances given the fact that these are already existing, and there are other agencies that handle these programs,” House appropriations committee vice chair Jil Bongalon said.
“For example, the medical and burial programs can be coursed through the Department of Health, Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, Social Security System, or Government Service Insurance System,” House Deputy Minority Leader France Castro added.
Vice presidents are often described as a spare tire, as the Constitution does not really give them a defined set of responsibilities. They get a Cabinet post if they have a working relationship with the president; otherwise, they try to make themselves useful with whatever budget they are given.
To be fair to Duterte, even past vice presidents were given funding for their social services projects. Even Duterte’s predecessor Robredo was given a budget of P826.155 million for her social service projects in 2021, and P621.607 million in 2022.
Duterte, however, is asking twice or thrice what Robredo got, a staggering P1.909 billion for her delivery of socioeconomic programs for 2025. If approved, that would be a jump from the P1.752 billion Duterte has for the current year. If she doesn’t defend her budget proposal, why would lawmakers approve her request?
Has the Sara Duterte-led OVP delivered so far, amid reports of underutilized funds, inventory mismanagement, and documentary deficiencies?
Tuesday’s hearing showed that numerous lawmakers have already obtained a copy of the COA audit report on the Vice President’s office for 2023, although it has yet to be released to the public.
Some lawmakers used that as basis for their interpellation of COA and the budget department, since the Vice President and her entire agency snubbed the budget briefing.
Castro and Batangas 2nd District Representative Gerville Luistro, for example, asked representatives from COA to expound on their findings regarding poor liquidation practices of the OVP.
“We noted that the distribution of welfare goods has various deficiencies. One of these is, the following documents needed to support the distribution of welfare goods were not required by the [OVP] to be submitted,” COA audit team leader Fahad Bin Abdul Malik Tomawis told lawmakers.
“What’s with this failure to account for the distribution of welfare goods? I hope not, but I’m afraid that this might be another case of ghost delivery,” Luistro added.
Luistro and House Assistant Minority Leader Arlene Brosas also raised concerns about state auditors’ observation that the OVP’s mobile kitchen program had food items nearing expiry, food items not found in the storage area, and food items kept in an unventilated shipping container.
“It’s like experiencing a deja vu of what was discussed during the budget briefing for the Department of Education, due to the findings on expired food items and powdered milk,” Brosas said. Duterte was education secretary from June 2022 to June 2024.
Brosas and Kabataan Representative Raoul Manuel zeroed in on COA’s finding that out of the P150 million allotted for the OVP’s Mag Negosyo Ta ‘Day program, only P600,000 or 0.4% were utilized as of end-2023.
COA said the low utilization is partly due to the fact that the program was in its pilot year, and because some of the beneficiaries struggled to comply with the documentary requirements, resulting in the rejection of their applications.
“Even if the program was just starting, if the funds utilized didn’t even reach half, then this is unacceptable,” Manuel insisted.
COA also confirmed there were vague guidelines on identifying the beneficiaries of the OVP’s PagbaBAGo Campaign, with some forms already pre-signed by students, prior to the actual distribution of kits.
Does the OVP really need a lot of satellite offices?
COA already flagged the OVP last year for its immediate creation of satellite offices without fully complying with procurement rules. Currently, there are 10 OVP satellite offices, and two extension offices. The government spent P53 million for 2023 for the lease of the spaces and rental of equipment.
Lawmakers are now questioning their necessity.
“We are seeing that the services offered by the satellite and extension offices are also given by regional offices and line agencies,” Zambales 2nd District Representative Doris Maniquiz said. “Shouldn’t we disallow these kinds of expenses that are just mere duplications?”
Maniquiz and Castro also wondered how the location of the offices was determined.
“In my opinion, if you see the offices and their locations, it’s as if they are campaign offices, because they are situated in vote-rich places,” Castro claimed.
1-Rider Representative Rodge Gutierrez also zeroed in on the uniform budget distribution among satellite offices of the OVP.
“Do you find it odd that for all these satellite offices, they share an equal P2.2 million cash advance?” Gutierrez asked COA.
“That is why we had an observation of over- and under-budget utilization, because for us, it shouldn’t be uniform. For us, scope of the beneficiaries should be considered to consider the right amount to be [given],” COA audit team leader Tomawis answered.
Tuesday’s hearing resulted in yet another rare deferral of deliberations for the OVP, and lawmakers are now eyeing a reduced budget for Duterte’s office in 2025.
The question is: by how much? – Rappler.com
* Quotes in Filipino were translated into English, and some were shortened for brevity.
