House panel wraps up VP Duterte probe

Manila Rep. Joel Chua —House of Representatives photo                            Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian —Niño Jesus Orbeta

MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives inquiry into Vice President Sara Duterte’s alleged misuse of P612.5 million in confidential funds of her office and the Department of Education (DepEd) wraps up on Monday.

This is to give way to a military probe into the two ranking officers allegedly tasked with receiving and spending the cash and the impeachment complaints against the Vice President.

Manila Rep. Joel Chua, chair of the House committee on good government and public accountability, said panel members decided it was time to end its inquiry before it became an “exercise in futility.”

READ: AFP probing 2 officers allegedly disbursing OVP, DepEd secret funds

In an interview on dzBB’s “Bantay Balita sa Kongreso,” Chua said only members of the House’s counterpart to the Senate blue ribbon committee would be attending Monday’s hearing to “wrap up and summarize” everything that has transpired in their inquiry since October.

Committee members are expected to recommend bills imposing stricter qualifications, requirements and responsibilities of special disbursing officers (SDO); lifting the confidential nature of funds for proper accounting upon the Commission on Audit’s (COA) issuance of a notice of disallowance; and limiting the allocation of confidential funds to agencies, particularly departments not concerned with intelligence-gathering, national security, and peace and order.

AFP’s internal probe

The committee is also likely to include the possible liabilities of some officials in its committee report.

Chua said the report would also include the results of a Philippine Statistics Authority verification of nearly 700 names, including Mary Grace Piattos and Kokoy Villamin. The names appeared on thousands of acknowledgment receipts submitted by the Office of the Vice President (OVP) to the COA to justify the confidential fund expenditures, including payments for rewards, travel expenses, safe house rentals, and purchase of information, supplies, food aid, and medicine.

“We were supposed to invite the two security officers who were mentioned but unfortunately we learned that the Armed Forces of the Philippines is conducting an internal investigation,” Chua said in Filipino.

No time for impeachment

The two military officials are Colonels Raymund Dante Lachica and Dennis Nolasco of the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group who were named by OVP SDO Gina Acosta and her counterpart in DepEd, Edward Fajarda, as recipients of quarterly withdrawals of confidential funds amounting to P125 million and P37.5 million, respectively. This occurred between December 2022 and September 2023.

Chua added that there were also impeachment complaints against Duterte over the alleged misuse of confidential funds. He said should the impeachment process against Duterte progress, she could answer questions about the funds before the House committee on justice.

However, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said pushing for the impeachment proceedings could delay the discussion and approval of priority bills.

“One of the complications I expect once the impeachment complaints reach the Senate is that there would be delays in taking up priority measures, or maybe there are those that won’t be discussed at all. We have so many priority measures, so many laws we want to pass,” he said in an interview with radio dzBB on Sunday.

“Because the concentration, the focus, research, everything would be utilized for the impeachment trial,” he added.

Senators serve as judges in the Senate impeachment court.

Gatchalian noted that impeachment proceedings are “complicated.”

He also questioned whether Congress had enough time to tackle the impeachment bid against Duterte since many lawmakers would be busy with the campaign before the May 2025 elections.

Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada shared the same concern earlier.

“We’ll adjourn on Dec. 18. We’ll resume on Jan. 13. We’ll adjourn again [on the] first week of February,” he said.

Estrada also said it was unthinkable to expedite the proceedings because of the voluminous documents that are expected to be presented during the impeachment hearings.