Solons: OVP will get a budget enough to perform constitutional mandate

House of Representatives plenary. INQUIRER FILES

MANILA, Philippines — The Office of the Vice President (OVP) will get a budget just enough for it to fulfill its constitutional mandate, House of Representatives lawmakers assured the public on Wednesday.

According to members of the House’s Young Guns, it does not matter if the recipient of the budget is an ally of the administration or not, noting that Congress’ role is to provide the proper budget for each agency.

Deputy Majority Leader and Tingog party-list Rep. Jude Acidre said that despite Vice President Sara Duterte’s behavior at the budget hearings, the House can always opt to be the “better person” and ensure that the OVP can carry out its functions.

“We might have differences with the person involved but the position of the Vice President is an office that we need to respect, ‘di ba?  We can only hope that the same respect that we give her or her office is reciprocated, unfortunately with her absence, it tells us otherwise.  But nonetheless, Congress can always choose to be the better person,” Acidre said in a briefing at the Batasang Pambansa complex.

“This is my position — I would support any moves to ensure that the Office of the Vice President is given the funds needed to carry out its constitutional mandate.  Anything that is more than that, I will leave to the wisdom of my colleagues,” he added.

Both La Union 1st District Rep. Paolo Ortega V and 1-Rider party-list Rep. Ramon Rodrigo Gutierrez agreed with Acidre’s stand, saying that there should be funds left to the agency — contrary to Vice President Duterte’s claims that she heard that there were talks to defund OVP.

“Pareho ni Cong. Jude ‘no, dapat po ‘yong maiiwan or ibibigay na budget doon sa Office of the Vice President is still responsive do’n sa mandato po niya,” Ortega said.

(Same with Cong. Jude, (my stand is) there should be funds left in the budget so that the Office of the Vice President will still be responsive to its mandate.)

“I think it really doesn’t matter whether you are an ally or not, and this applies to all agencies. Our mandate here is to exercise the power of the purse and we will, as Cong Jude said, we’ll do all our efforts to make sure that whatever the department, whatever the office, they have what they need to carry their constitutional mandate,” Gutierrez added.

Duterte in her latest interview released by the OVP on Wednesday stated that there are plans for the House to defund their budget — possibly being given a P1 budget.

According to the Vice President, they are ready to work even without a budget.

READ: Sara Duterte OK with zero OVP budget 

At Tuesday’s hearing of the House committee on appropriations, Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Raul Angelo Bongalon moved to defer deliberations on the OVP budget, with the possibility of giving it a reduced fund.

This was after Duterte’s snubbed the September 10 hearing, with neither her nor any OVP representative attending.

The September 10 hearing was conducted after the same panel deferred the OVP budget talks last August 27, as Duterte refrained from directly answering lawmakers’ questions.

READ: OVP’s 2025 budget talks deferred anew; panel terminates hearings 

As response, Duterte said 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.