Senate adopts P1.3-billion House cut in OVP budget

Sara’s aide flies to US, spokesman resigns

MANILA, Philippines — The Senate adopted the House of Representatives’ P1.3-billion cut in the 2025 budget of the Office of the Vice President (OVP), as the Upper Chamber formally started discussions on the proposed P6.352-trillion 2025 national budget.

The 14-page Senate finance committee report posted on its website indicated that the senators retained the House version of the OVP budget with P733.198 million, from the initial proposal of P2.037 billion, while the Office of the President retained its P10.446-billion proposed allocation.

In a chance interview with Senate reporters, Sen. Grace Poe, chairperson of the Senate finance committee, admitted that the Senate adopted the House version of the cut on the OVP budget.

“Yes, the Senate adopted the House version of the OVP budget cut. We reached out several times to the Office of the Vice President, requesting they submit documents to clarify issues regarding their budget, but they have not submitted them as of today. So we decided to retain the GAB (General Appropriations Bill) amount pending submission and review of these documents.”

“While we cannot account for movements in the figures on an apples-to-apples basis, we can say that we retained the original budget for the relevant item in DSWD while we increased further the item under the DOH budget,” Poe noted, referring to the Department of Social Welfare and Development and the Department of Health.

Poe said the proposed 2025 national budget emphasized significant priorities in social services, health, education, jobs, technology and infrastructure and human development. She underscored the imperative for accountability in every peso spent in the budget.

“This budget isn’t just a series of numbers. It’s a blueprint of our priorities, the most important investment of our government and the heartbeat of our nation’s future,” Poe said in her sponsorship of the GAB containing the P6.352-trillion proposed budget.

“Under this Senate committee report, every peso has been accounted for. With each line item, we asked all agencies, ‘What do we want to happen here?’” Poe said. “Accountability is not just a choice; it is our duty.”

Meanwhile, the Senate has also started discussions on the budget of each department in the executive branch.

VP’s aide in US

One of the seven officials under the Office of the Vice President (OVP) whom lawmakers wanted to be included in the Bureau of Immigration’s (BI) lookout bulletin managed to leave for the United States last Monday.

Based on immigration records sent by the BI to the House of Representatives’ committee on good government and public accountability, Vice President Sara Duterte’s chief of staff Zuleika Lopez left Monday night at 7:30 p.m. via Philippine Airlines flight PR 102 to Los Angeles, California.

However, it could not be ascertained by the BI whether one of the OVP’s special disbursing officers (SDO), Gina Acosta, was able to leave the country on the basis that she has “multiple namesakes” as her name is very common, thus making the search for her difficult.

The rest of the OVP staff were also able to travel overseas, as reported by the BI to panel chairman Manila Rep. Joel Chua. Nonetheless, they have come back, like Edward Fajarda, another OVP’s SDO, and former Department of Education (DepEd) assistant secretary Sunshine Charry Fajarda, who both arrived last June 25.

Rep. Bienvenido Abante, chairman of the House committee on human rights, noticed that the OVP officials seem to be well-off, owing to the fact that they travel a lot based on immigration records.

“If I may issue a warning, please don’t challenge us to issue contempt orders for you (OVP officials) to attend our next hearing. We have been very lenient with you. The next hearing will be our fifth,” Abante said.

Upon the motion of Abante and Rep. Joseph Stephen Paduano of Abang Lingkod party-list, the Chua committee decided to re-issue another subpoena to the seven OVP officials “with the stern warning that refusal to do so will be dealt with accordingly.”

The Chua panel wanted to summon Lopez, Acosta, the Fajarda couple, chief accountant Julieta Villadelrey, assistant chief of staff and bids and awards committee chairman Lemuel Ortonio and administrative and financial services director Rosalynne Sanchez to the House hearings.

The OVP officials have snubbed the House hearings in connection with the office’s utilization of its budget.

“The Office of the Vice President maintains that the ongoing congressional inquiry by the House committee on good government and public accountability is unnecessary and plagued with irregularities in the conduct of the proceedings,” the OVP said in a press statement yesterday.

The office also refused to receive and honor the subpoena earlier issued by the House committee to compel the attendance of its officials in the hearing.

“The OVP asserts that the subpoena issued by the honorable members of the House panel is not valid. The subpoena document dated Oct. 17, 2024 issued for the hearing on Oct. 28, 2024, was only transmitted to the agency on Nov. 4, 2024,” the OVP said.

The office pointed out that since the subpoena issued to its officials was for the hearing scheduled on Oct. 28, it can “no longer be legally served nor obeyed” thus its officials refused to receive it upon serving at the OVP office in Mandaluyong City on Monday.

The OVP cited Sec. 8 of the Rules Governing Inquiries in Aid of Legislation, which states that a subpoena shall be served to a witness “at least three days before a scheduled hearing in order to give the witness every opportunity to prepare and to employ counsel, should the witness desire.”

“With due respect to the members of the honorable committee, service of a subpoena must be proper in order not to violate the right to sufficient notice of the persons invited in the hearing,” the OVP said.

In a position paper submitted to the House committee yesterday, the OVP also reiterated its earlier position that the ongoing inquiry is no longer “in aid of legislation.”

“While the OVP recognizes the power of the Lower House to conduct such an inquiry ‘in aid of legislation,’ the ongoing congressional probe, which stemmed from Privilege Speech (P.S.) No. 379 of the Hon. Rolando Valeriano last Sept. 3, 2024, is not in aid of legislation,” the office said

“P.S. No. 379 as well as the motu proprio inquiry based on the manifestation of Hon. Gerville Luistro both lack clear legislative objectives or contemplated legislation that is expected as an outcome of the deliberations,” the OVP further stated.

The OVP pointed out that the issues on utilization of its budget for 2022 to 2024 have already been extensively tackled during the House appropriations committee’s deliberation on the OVP’s proposed budget for 2025.

“Considering that budget utilization is a matter directly and principally relating to the expenditures of the national government and that the appropriate committee has already terminated its deliberations, no other committee can take up the same subject matter appropriately belonging to it,” OVP said.

Lastly, the OVP said there is already ongoing audit proceedings by the Commission on Audit (COA) in connection with its budget utilization and that “the OVP is fully cooperating with the COA.”

Poa contract ‘pre-terminated’

Meanwhile, Michael Poa, former spokesman of the OVP, said his contract with Duterte has been “pre-terminated.”

He told the Chua-led panel that contrary to the lawmakers’ impression, he is no longer connected with any of Duterte’s offices.

“I would like to inform the committee that I am no longer connected with the OVP. My consultancy contract (was) already pre-terminated,” he told Chua and the panel members.

The panel also asked Poa if he personally knew OVP officials who snubbed the hearing anew.

“When I was still there, yes, they were connected with the OVP. Although as of today, I can no longer say that they are, factually, if they are still connected or not. I would assume, because of the position paper with the letterhead, that they’re still connected,” he retorted.

In effect, he confirmed that the seven officials may still be connected with the OVP.

The former OVP and DepEd spokesman pointed out that his function and exposure were just limited to “upper management” on the basis that he was responsible for addressing media queries.

Poa clarified, however, that he had no involvement in the decision-making processes around confidential fund disbursements of the OVP and DepEd.

Earlier, he made his statements before the House committee where he confirmed that Duterte and Edward held the sole authority over DepEd’s confidential funds.

The revelation came as a surprise to committee members, as Poa testified on the structure of authority governing the use of these confidential funds, which have been a focal point of legislative scrutiny and public concern.

‘Malversation’

The Chua committee is investigating a total of P612.5-million potential misuse of confidential funds managed by the OVP and DepEd, with the latter being led by Duterte for two years from July 2022 to July 2024.

Of the P612.5 million, P500 million pertains to the OVP’s confidential fund allocations while P112.5 million went to DepEd.

“We’re very much dismayed at what we have discovered here in the House Blue Ribbon committee. We have seen how much has been spent by the OVP and DepEd on the use of confidential funds that have been issued to them in fiscal years 2022 and 2023,” Chua disclosed.

The OVP received P625 million in confidential funds for late 2022 and all of 2023, with COA reviewing P500 million and noting significant irregularities.

In December 2022 alone, the OVP spent P125 million in just 11 days – from Dec. 21 to 31 – averaging P11.364 million daily, with the COA disallowing P73.3 million of this for irregularities and ordering repayment from Duterte and two other OVP officials.

Additionally, COA issued three audit observation memorandums in 2023, highlighting adverse findings on OVP’s quarterly confidential funds use up to the third quarter.

One of the confidential funds’ expenditures raising significant concerns involved P16 million reportedly spent by the OVP on 34 safehouses over an 11-day period in 2022.

Batangas 2nd district Rep. Gerville Luistro discovered yesterday that on top of other irregularities Duterte may have committed, she can also be held liable for malversation of public funds, among others, over an unaccounted P10.4 million in confidential funds.

“So, where is this amount now? In conclusion, I wish to believe that the confidential fund of the Department of Education was not properly recorded at its best, or misspent or misappropriated at its worst,” she said.

According to the lawmaker, only the two P2-million confidential fund allocations – or a total of P4.2 million – have been liquidated by the former education secretary while there were no acknowledgment receipts for the rest.

Luistro said the liquidation covered only one of the four DepEd programs which is anti-insurgency. In contrast, programs about “abuse prevention and control within schools, anti-illegal activities operation, anti-extremism/terrorism programs” remained unaccounted for.

The confidential and intelligence funds issued to Duterte at the time amounted to P15.5 million.

“What is consistent, with respect to their location, is equivalent only to the amount of P4.2 million. So there remains an unexplained amount of P10.4 million,” she said during yesterday’s hearing.

These were among the agency’s confidential programs, which were in the form of “payment and rewards for informants” when, in fact, it should be the other way around, according to Luistro.

“It is the humble submission of this representation that there is a prima facie case of malversation and, in addition, an apparent case of breach of public trust. For us to be able to know whether there is malversation, four elements must be present,” she stated.

“First, the person should be a ‘public official,’ second, the person is the ‘custodian of fund,’ third is the ‘fund must be for public purpose’ and last but not least, that the public official ‘took, appropriated, misappropriated or consented or negligence permitted another person to take them,’” she added.

“If the four elements are present, which I believe they are, there is prima facie case of malversation. With respect to the breach of public trust, this is violation of public’s confidence in a public officer’s ability to serve with integrity, impartiality and in accordance with law,” she further explained. — Elizabeth Marcelo