Vice President Sara Duterte. INQUIRER PHOTO / NIÑO JESUS ORBETA
The House of Representatives made the most of Vice President Sara Duterte’s unexpected appearance at the quad committee hearing that centered on her father, by personally handing her a fresh invitation to the inquiry into her alleged misuse of public funds.
After snubbing the House for weeks, the Vice President came unannounced at the Batasang Pambansa on Wednesday where she watched her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, taking questions about the drug war killings during his administration.
Taken aback
Duterte was in the gallery, seated a row behind her father, when a House staff member handed her the invite to the Nov. 20 hearing of the House committee on good government which was looking into the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) use of confidential funds in 2022 and 2023.
The same committee is investigating allegations of funding irregularities in the Department of Education (DepEd), which Sara Duterte used to head until she resigned in July this year.
She took the letter, though she appeared taken aback when it was first presented.
The letter, dated Nov. 13 and signed by the committee chair and Manila Rep. Joel Chua, requested her attendance in the next hearing to “provide clarifications on the Office of the Vice President’s budget utilization from your assumption of office in 2022 up to present.”
“[This] includ[es] questions on the projects/programs and/or beneficiaries of said programs of your honorable office, regular and confidential funds, and other related matters,” Chua wrote.
He also asked that she inform the panel in writing if she would attend.
READ: House probe into Duterte drug war won’t be fair – VP Sara
With her relations with President Marcos then turning sour, the younger Duterte has been ignoring the committee’s invitation for weeks since appearing in the first hearing on Sept. 18.
Duterte refused to take an oath — a formality for resource persons — in that hearing and instead lashed out at the committee members for allegedly using the inquiry as a prelude to her impeachment. The panel has continued its inquiry despite her absence.
Panel findings
The panel learned that the OVP allegedly spent heavily to rent satellite offices and safe houses and also to reward informants who were tapped for the office’s functions that supposedly include national security.
But the hearings also revealed that the OVP submitted either deficient or dubious receipts to account for the expenditures.
DepEd in 2023, for example, allegedly spent P15.54 million in confidential funds to pay informants.
The use of the funds was backed by certifications from the Philippine Army. The paper trail also indicated that DepEd took part in youth leadership conferences purportedly designed to protect the youth from the influence of the communist insurgency.
But it later emerged that the activities were paid for by the Army and some local government units.
READ: Quad comm won’t allow ICC to access its drug war hearing transcript
The committee also learned that DepEd, under Duterte, withdrew P112.5 million in confidential funds—through three checks worth P37.5 million—as cash advances in the first three quarters of 2023.
Despite these discoveries, Chua said it was too early to consider them as grounds for an impeachment complaint against the Vice President.
But Senior Deputy Speaker and Pampanga Rep. Aurelio Gonzales said Duterte’s failure to account for funds of such amounts could make her liable for plunder.