President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte. (INQUIRER.net files)
MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. on Wednesday said there is no politics involved in the budget deliberations on the 2025 budget of the Office of the Vice President (OVP), disputing Vice President Sara Duterte’s claim.
“I don’t know where all [of that came from], this is a budget hearing … this is something that every single government agency has to do, it’s a hearing, there’s no politics in it,” said Marcos.
“We do it every year, we do it with the same department, that process is well established, it has nothing to do with politics, it has to do with the budget,” he added.
According to Marcos, the budget deliberations in Congress is its way of information gathering “so that they will know what the budget will look like.”
“So, I don’t know how she can characterize these things … malayo sa pulitika ‘yon (it’s far from politics),” he said.
The OVP’s proposed P2.037 billion budget for fiscal year 2025 is currently facing heavy scrutiny before Congress.
The House of Representatives has even deferred the OVP budget’s deliberations after Duterte refused to answer queries from lawmakers about how her office uses its budget.
In the Senate, there was a heated exchange between Duterte and Senator Risa Hontiveros after the latter questioned the OVP’s requested P10 million allocation for the publication of the Vice President’s self-authored children’s book “Isang Kaibigan,” with the former claiming that the OVP budget was being politicized.