Kabataan Rep. Raoul Manuel (Photo from his Facebook account)
MANILA, Philippines — Accusations from Vice President Sara Duterte that the House of Representatives leadership is working with communist armed group New People’s Army (NPA) are not true, lawmakers said on Wednesday.
In a statement, Kabataan party-list Rep. Raoul Manuel said that it seems Duterte is again employing squid tactics — distracting the public from the issues at hand.
According to Manuel, the House leadership’s support of the counter-insurgency initiatives of Duterte’s father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, would belie this claim.
“Squid tactics na naman! Saan banda yung suporta ng House leadership sa NPA?” Manuel asked.
(Squid tactics again! How could the House leadership support the NPA?)
“What it supports are Duterte counter-insurgency legacies: NTF-Elcac (National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict) and billions of CIF (confidence and intelligence funds) for the Office of the President acting as NTF-Elcac secretariat. Pati PNP (Philippine National Police) and AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) intel funds being used to target and abduct ‘dissidents’,” he added.
Duterte, in an interview which was released by the Office of the Vice President (OVP) on Wednesday, claimed that the Makabayan bloc whispered to House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez to remove the confidential funds (CF) of her office in crafting the 2024 budget.
Romualdez, according to Duterte, supposedly accepted this out of fear that he might be criticized by Makabayan, and to support the NPA.
“In less than two hours, the statement of Cong. Zaldy Co came out. What did he say? ‘It’s a unanimous decision of party leaders under the leadership of Cong. Martin Romualdez, to remove the confidential funds’. And for it not to be an obvious attack against me, they also removed other departments of their confidential funds,” Duterte said.
“So, you see, the Makabayan Bloc whispered it to Martin Romualdez. And because of Martin Romualdez’ desire for him not to be attacked, and because he wants to support the Makabayan and the NPA, he listened. And what he did was to remove the budget,” she added.
READ: VP Sara told: Attacking a vice president was Duterte admin’s game plan
Deputy Majority Leader and Tingog party-list Rep. Jude Acidre maintained that the Makabayan bloc’s insights on the CF were public statements and could not have been whispers to the Speaker.
According to Acidre, the decision of the House to strip OVP of the CF was a collective decision, noting that this is the best move for the country.
“With regards to our friends from the Makabayan, you know the Makabayan bloc, the lawmakers, they have been really active fiscalizers in Congress, and I will give it to them because they produce good research, they lay down concerns and arguments in a good way, and the leadership cannot say that we did not hear their concerns,” Acidre said.
“But the actions of the leadership is not just a product of because they whispered, that is too much of a convenient consideration. The statements of Makabayan are a public record, it’s part of the proceedings of Congress, I don’t think that’s a whisper. Then eventually, Congress as a whole decided what was best for the country, right? Our obligation ultimately is for the people,” he added.
OVP’s proposed P500 million CF for 2024, along with the P150 million lodged at the Department of Education (DepEd) when she was Education secretary, were removed by the House after reaching a consensus that civilian agencies with no surveillance function should not have these secret funds.
Instead, the House allocated the CF of OVP, DepEd, and other offices amounting to P1.2 billion to agencies securing the West Philippine Sea.
READ: How House removed, reduced the confidential funds of gov’t agencies
The OVP now does not have confidential funds in the 2025 proposed budget, but lawmakers have aired questions about how Duterte’s office spent CF allocations in 2022 and 2023, especially following a Commission on Audit report disallowing P73.2 million of the OVP’s P125 million CF for 2022.
On Tuesday, no less than Majority Leader Manuel Jose Dalipe said that Duterte may be liable for graft if she cannot explain how funds were spent.