House panel rebukes VP via vote – and ‘pusit’ lunch?

ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro and Vice President Sara Duterte. —File photos from the House of Representatives

MANILA, Philippines — They made their sentiments known by their vote—and apparently by what they had for lunch.

Members of the House committee on appropriations voted 45-3 on Tuesday to reject a motion to terminate deliberations on the proposed P2-billion budget for the Office of the Vice President for 2025, in a rebuke of Vice President Sara Duterte over what they called her “brazen disrespect” toward the chamber.

This was after Duterte and her OVP staff snubbed the second hearing of the committee of appropriations on the draft OVP budget, which became necessary after the first hearing on Aug. 29 saw an open display of hostility between her and some key panel members.

“She truly is a bratinella (little spoiled brat) to the max,” said ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro at the hearing before the vote.

“Sorry to the Filipino people, the vice president boycotted us,” said Castro, who had accused Duterte of employing “squid tactics” to evade scrutiny.

Incidentally, a squid dish was among the viands served for lunch during Tuesday’s hearing.

Nobody among the diners would say whether the menu was intentionally selected given the day’s topic, but Castro drew attention to the “pusit” on her plate by posting a photo of it on X and saying: “We’ve been boycotted, as you can see. But today we have this yummy lunch.”

‘Accountable to the people’

With the panel refusing to terminate proceedings on the OVP budget, the next venue for its scrutiny would be the plenary.

“I do not care even if she is the vice president,” added Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante. “I will not allow Congress to be insulted by the head of any agency.”

“She may not like being questioned about the OVP expenses, she may not like sitting with us here in the House, but she is accountable to the people and she has a sworn duty to the Constitution as the head of an agency to defend its budget,” said Gabriela Rep. Arlene Brosas, poking fun at a social media meme derived from Duterte’s combative statements in the first hearing.

The panel earlier deferred approval of the OVP budget during the first hearing on Aug. 29 after a combative Duterte refused to answer questions about how her office spent her P125 million confidential funds in 2022.

With no Duterte or any OVP staff to answer questions on Tuesday, lawmakers were forced to direct their questions to officials from the Commission on Audit and the Department of Budget and Management.

She instead sent a letter to the chamber to say she “defers entirely to the discretion and judgment of the committee.” Her office also released a video where she accused Speaker Martin Romualdez and the committee chair, AKO Bicol Rep. Elizaldy Co, of “controlling” the national budget.

‘Pambubudol’

Co, who usually let panel’s senior vice chair, Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo, preside over budget hearings, joined a media briefing to answer Duterte with a four-minute tirade.

Duterte’s allegations, Co said, were yet another “pambubudol” or diversionary tactic from the issues hounding her.

For someone claiming to be “a simple person,” he said, Duterte had up to 400 bodyguards, “the only vice president in the country with that much security.”

He recalled one instance when “she was the only one who appeared in the previous appropriations hearing, but she brought with her a phalanx of bodyguards that day. She asked for food for 100 guards that they did not eat. Is this not an insult and a waste of government resources?”

Co also refuted her claim that the panel he chairs was “not accustomed to being challenged,” saying it was her who refused to answer questions and even appear before the committee.

“She wants interbranch courtesy but she herself does not have courtesy for Congress,” he added. “She’s a lawyer but it seems she was absent when law school taught about separation of powers and Congress being a co-equal branch of government.”

“This is a democracy and not a monarchy,” he pointed out. “We don’t have kings and queens. The sun has set on the previous administration, and our officials do not have the right to walk around as if they own the place.”

Turning to Duterte’s past stint as concurrent secretary of the Department of Education, Co added: ”Why the rampant corruption and failures under her leadership at the DepEd? It was because of laziness, and she was not reporting for work.”

Defenders

Duterte was defended on Tuesday by SAGIP Rep. Rodante Marcoleta, who pointedly asked Quimbo whether the panel “was setting aside the tradition of granting parliamentary courtesy” to the budgets of the Office of the President and the OVP, which were normally approved at the committee level within minutes.

“And, if so, the question is, why have we discarded that tradition?” Marcoleta said, before moving to terminate the OVP’s budget hearing.

But it was La Union Rep. Pablo Ortega and Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong who countered Marcoleta, saying budget deliberations were about transparency.

“We must also remember that that tradition is born from a courtesy, from either parliamentary courtesy or interbranch courtesy. Courtesy is given as a privilege, and as such, privilege is not given freely, it is earned. Privilege is both circumstantial and conditional,” Adiong said.

Aside from Marcoleta, who moved to terminate proceedings, the two other members who joined him were Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab and Davao Occidental Rep. Claude Bautista.