COA: OVP sent deficient receipts on secret funds

Manila Rep. Joel Chua —Niño Jesus Orbeta

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Audit (COA) has confirmed that the Office of the Vice President (OVP) had sent the audit body more than 1,200 deficient acknowledgment receipts to explain its use of P125 million in confidential funds spent in 11 days in December 2022.

In a hearing by the House good government and accountability committee on Tuesday, the COA said the OVP submitted acknowledgment receipts with erroneous dates, unreadable names, and those bearing only signatures to justify payments out of the agency’s P125-million confidential fund for 2022.

Cash envelopes

Lawyer Gloria Camora of the COA’s Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office said the acknowledgment receipts were for the payment of rewards, including medicine, as well as the purchase of information, supplies, equipment and food aid.

Camora pointed out that the payments were included in the COA’s notice of disallowance for P73 million of the P125 million in confidential funds spent by the OVP in 11 days due to the discrepancies in the acknowledgment receipts.

READ: Senate retains OVP’s proposed P733-M budget

She confirmed that 158 acknowledgment receipts for some P23.8 million in payments bore erroneous dates, indicating “December 2023” instead of “December 2022.”

READ: House: 1 of 7 OVP officials linked to alleged fund misuse left PH

Likewise, the COA observed that 787 acknowledgment receipts had no names and had only signatures, while the names in 302 receipts were unreadable.

In the course of the hearing, Ma. Rhunna Catalan, chief accountant of the Department of Education (DepEd), said she was given P25,000 monthly for nine months by lawyer Sunshine Fajarda, who had served as DepEd assistant secretary on the watch of Vice President Sara Duterte.

Catalan is the third DepEd official who has testified to regularly receiving cash envelopes from Duterte. Former DepEd Undersecretary and head of procuring entity Gloria Mercado and bids and awards committee chair Resty Osias earlier said they were given every month P50,000 and P12,000-P15,000, respectively, by Fajarda.

Still no-show

Meanwhile, Fajarda and six other OVP officials skipped the House panel hearing on Tuesday on Duterte’s expenditures, particularly the confidential funds she requested during her first years in office.

The committee also noted that Duterte’s chief of staff, Zuleika Lopez, had left for Los Angeles on Monday night.

OVP spokesperson Michael Poa also informed the panel that he had left his post, claiming difficulty in further fulfilling his duties.

Poa, the only OVP official who has consistently taken part in the House inquiry, maintained that he and Duterte mutually agreed to preterminate his employment contract, which was supposed to end next month.

The other OVP officials sought by the House are Lemuel Ortonio, assistant chief of staff; lawyer Rosalynne Sanchez, director of the administrative and financial services office; special disbursing officer Gina Acosta; chief accountant Julieta Villadelrey, and former DepEd disbursing officer and Fajarda’s husband, Edward.

In a new position paper submitted by the officials to the House good government and accountability committee, they insisted that the ongoing House inquiry on Duterte’s alleged misuse of funds was “unnecessary,” defending its officials’ absence at Tuesday’s hearing.

They also claimed that the ongoing inquiry was “not in aid of legislation,” reiterating their earlier technical stance that the invitation to them did not indicate what possible laws may be crafted after the hearings have concluded.

Another point they reiterated was that the good government panel has no jurisdiction over the budget utilization of the OVP, noting that this should be discussed in the committee on appropriations.

Ironically, however, Duterte herself refused to answer queries from lawmakers about how she used her previous secret funds during the appropriations panel’s budget deliberations for the proposed OVP budget for 2025.

Invalid subpoena

The OVP also cited a technicality in defending its officials’ absence, pointing out that the subpoenas, which they described as “not valid,” were transmitted to them on a later date.

Duterte’s office was referring to a House good government subpoena dated Oct. 17, which called on OVP officials for the panel’s hearing on Oct. 28.

However, the OVP noted that the subpoena was transmitted to them only on Monday, Nov. 4.

“As the said subpoena issued by the honorable committee bears the information that it was issued for a past October 28, 2024 hearing schedule—which was also reset—it would be improper to receive the same; thus, there was no subpoena for the schedule proceedings on November 5, 2024,” the OVP said in a statement.

This means that the subpoena to OVP officials “can no longer be legally served nor obeyed as the scheduled hearing” originally set on Oct. 28 was reset by the House panel “until further notice in an earlier notice given.”

Since there was “no validly served and received subpoena,” the OVP said its invited officials to the House probe relied “mainly” on the invitation dated Nov. 1, which requested them to attend the House panel’s hearing on Tuesday and that they learned of it only the day before.

The OVP cited the Rules Governing Inquiries in Aid of Legislation, which states that a subpoena shall be served to the “witness” at least three days before the hearing “to give the witness every opportunity to prepare and employ the counsel, should the witness desire.”

“With due respect to the members of the honorable committee, service of a subpoena must be proper in order not to violate the right to sufficient notice of the persons invited in a hearing,” the OVP said.

The House panel, chaired by Manila Rep. Joel Chua, again issued subpoenas for Lopez, Ortonio, Sanchez, Acosta; as well as Fajarda and her husband.