Vice President Sara Duterte. Photo from the House of Representatives of the Philippines’ Facebook page. August 28, 2024
LEGAZPI, Albay — Manila 3rd District Rep. Joel Chua asked if lawmakers still have to remind Vice President Sara Duterte to follow rules as she insisted on staying inside the House of Representatives on Thursday night despite repeated requests for her to leave.
In a press briefing on Friday at the Batasang Pambansa, Chua said he hoped Duterte would heed the request for her to leave as public servants should be reasonable individuals.
Duterte was in the Batasang Pambansa complex on Thursday night to visit her chief-of-staff, Undersecretary Zuleika Lopez, who is currently detained at the House premises after being cited for contempt by a committee.
Duterte arrived at 7:40 p.m. House Secretary General Reginald Velasco said the Vice President stayed with Lopez until the end of visiting hours at 10:00 p.m.
After this, Velasco said, Duterte spent the night at the office of her brother Davao City 1st District Rep. Paolo Duterte. Eventually, it was revealed that the Vice President and her staff locked themselves inside Rep. Duterte’s office even after power had to be shut down for longstanding energy-saving policies in the House.
“Do we need to say that the Vice President should follow the law? Our Vice President is a lawyer, she is the second-highest official of the land. We took an oath of service which stated that we will follow the rules of the land,” Chua said.
“So I think the Vice President is a reasonable person, and I think she knows what she has to do, and what rules are in place here,” he added.
As to what course of action he would take if Duterte insists on staying, Chua said he would have to discuss this with the House Sergeant-at-Arms, retired police Maj. Gen. Napoleon Taas.
“We are reasonable individuals, right? We are all public servants here,” he said.
“So our work as public servants is to follow the law and implement the law. But if we, ourselves, would not follow the law, how can we enforce the law?” he asked.
Taas said he would not get tired of asking Duterte to leave House premises as she is his “mistah” or classmate at the Philippine Military Academy (PMA).
“You have not asked, but our Vice President is an honorary member of my class in the PMA, the Class of 1984. So we call each other ‘mistah.’ That’s why I would not get tired of appealing to my mistah,” he said.
“Because based on my experience, and even for those who graduate, the groups within PMA, if the appeal was made from one mistah to another, we give way. So I am still hoping, and that’s what I intend to do,” he added.
Lopez was cited for contempt after lawmakers found her committing undue interference in the panel’s hearings.
READ: House panel moves to cite OVP exec Lopez for contempt
In a letter, Lopez asked the Commission on Audit (COA) to refrain from giving the House its audit observations on OVP’s confidential funds (CF) expenses.
ACT Teachers party-list Rep. France Castro, who motioned to cite Lopez for contempt, believes that the OVP official was ordering the COA, which would have prevented the House from scrutinizing the OVP’s transactions.
Before Castro’s motion, lawmakers were already frustrated with Lopez, as she insisted that there were matters in the OVP that she was not privy to despite being the Vice President’s chief of staff.
Deputy Speaker David Suarez asked Lopez how she insisted on not knowing about the OVP’s CF transactions when it was she who wrote the response to letters and summons regarding the issue, including the OVP’s answer to COA’s audit observation memorandum.
READ: Solons quiz Lopez over claims she doesn’t know OVP secret fund deals