Quimbo to VP Sara: Defending your budget was most difficult thing I did

MANILA, Philippines — Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo has disputed Vice President Sara Duterte’s claims about a “script” where the confidential funds (CF) issue was weaponized, saying answering queries about the Office of the Vice President (OVP) budget was the hardest point in her career as a lawmaker.

At the House of Representatives’ committee on appropriations’ hearing on Tuesday regarding OVP’s proposed 2025 budget, Quimbo countered Duterte’s previous statements where the Vice President stated that the issue of spending CFs in just 11 days in 2022 was the starting point of a script.

READ: Squid tactics? Castro scores VP Sara for deflecting secret fund issue

It was Quimbo who was answering questions about the Commission on Audit (COA) proposed budget for 2024, during plenary debate last September 2023, when Gabriela party-list Rep. Arlene Brosas asked her if COA can confirm that the office’s CFs were spent from December 13 to 31, 2022 or 19 days.

Quimbo then clarified that the CF was spent in 11 days, or from December 21 to 31—shorter than what Brosas initially thought.

READ: VP Duterte wants Quimbo replaced as OVP budget hearing presider

“I believe, ang sinabi po ni Madam Vice President is that tila may lumalabas na po na pattern simula noong araw na nagsagutan po kami sa plenaryo na lumabas po na 11 days lamang ang period na kung saan ginamit po ang pondo amounting to P125 million (I believe, what the Madam Vice President was saying is that it seems there is a pattern since the day that we were discussing the issue at the plenary where it came out that the confidential funds amounting to P125 million were used in 11 days only.),” Quimbo said during the appropriations hearing.

READ: How House removed, reduced the confidential funds of gov’t agencies

‘In no way a planned action’

“I just want to state for the record that that was in no way a planned action on my part. That was the most difficult moment in my five years in Congress. Tinanong ako ng isang tanong (I was asked a question), I just had to say the truth,” she added.

According to Quimbo, she just mentioned what was stated in the report—that the OVP’s CF in 2022 was spent in 11 days.

“Nakabase sa liquidation report at kitang-kita niyo naman doon po sa nakakita na po ng notice of disallowance na ginamit po siya from December 21-31 at pagbilangin po natin ang mga araw na yan mula 21-31 ay indeed 11 days (It was based on the liquidation report and you can see that, if you have seen the notice of disallowance already, that the funds were used from December 21-31 and if we count this, from 21-31, is only 11 days.),” she said.

“So ’yan lang po. I just want to state that on record that on my part, simula noong moment na ’yan ay naging napakahirap ng buhay ko (So that’s it. I just want to state on record that on my part, since that moment, my life has been so hard.). No rational human being would ever want to plan her life that way. So there‘s absolutely no way that can be planned on my part, just for the record,” she added.

Duterte’s claims came after she was asked by 1-Rider party-list Rep. Ramon Rodrigo Gutierrez as to why the OVP no longer spent its CF for the fourth quarter of 2023. According to the Vice President, they no longer used the CF after Congress removed the secret funds for the proposed 2024 budget, to show that they can survive without it.

“Kasi Madam Chair, noong nagsagutan na kayo, ikaw, Representative Quimbo, saka Representative (France) Castro about the 11 days, 19 days, ilang days na ’yong ng utilization, nakita ko na that was the start of an attack against the Office of the Vice President and i-hinge ’yong attack on the confidential fund use,” Duterte claimed.

(Because Madam Chair, when you had your exchanges—you, Representative Quimbo, and Representative (France) Castro about the 11 days, 19 days, how many days of utilization, I saw this as the start of an attack against the Office of the Vice President and the attack will be hinged on the confidential fund use.)

Scripted?

“So nakita na namin ’yong timelines and nakita na namin ’yong kumbaga, script sa narrative ng attack on the Office of the Vice President with regards to confidential funds. So to show goodwill to the people and para mapabigyan ng mukha na sinabi namin na […] napapadali ang trabaho namin dahil sa confidential funds dahil nata-target namin kung saan dapat ilagay ang proyekto pero pwede kaming magtrabaho nang walang confidential funds (So we saw the timelines and we saw the supposed script regarding the narrative of the attack on the Office of the Vice President with regards to confidential funds. So to show goodwill to the people and to prove our claims that while our work will become easier because we can target where projects should be placed, we can do it without confidential funds.),” she added.

Tensions were high during a huge part of the budget deliberations as Duterte refrained from replying directly to almost all questions—only saying that she either forgoes the opportunity to defend the budget in a question-and-answer format, or by insisting that they have already coordinated with the Commission on Audit regarding the notice of disallowance.

During the discussions, Castro likened Duterte to a squid who releases ink when under pressure—as the Vice President deflected questions related to her office’s CFs.

Duterte also had to be reminded several times to exercise decorum, with Quimbo calling out the Vice President for talking before she was recognized. At one point in the hearing, Duterte also asked the committee chair—Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Elizaldy Co — to supervise over the hearing instead of Quimbo.

OVP was not allocated any CF under the 2025 National Expenditures Program, as the Department of Budget and Management decided to adopt Congress’ policy of not giving secret funds to civilian agencies with no surveillance mandate.

But in 2023, the CF of OVP and the Department of Education (DepEd)—an office previously under Duterte—went through scrutiny after it was revealed that OVP had a P125 million CF for 2022 even if the original budget did not have these items.

As a result, the House removed the P500 million CF request of the OVP and realigned it to agencies securing the West Philippine Sea. Meanwhile, the P150 million CF request of the DepEd was converted into an item under maintenance and other operating expenses.