Rep. Castro to Sara Duterte: Am not related to Claire; answer charges
NOT RELATED: Presidential Communications Office Undersecretary Claire Castro (left) and Akbayan party-list Rep. France Castro. File photo
DAGUPAN CITY, Pangasinan—ACT Teachers party-list Rep. France Castro has disputed Vice President Sara Duterte’s alleged claim that she is related to Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro, urging the country’s second-highest official to address issues hurled against her.
Rep. Castro, in a message sent to reporters on Friday, said that it seems everything that comes out of Duterte’s mouth is just lies.
The vice president, in an ambush interview on Wednesday, said that she has had bad experiences with people using the surname Castro. Duterte then said that the two Castros may be cousins.
According to the lawmaker, Duterte should devote her time to explaining unanswered concerns about her offices’ confidential fund (CF) expenditures.
“On the contrary it seems that nothing good comes out of VP Duterte’s mouth as she has been lying, hiding from the truth, badmouthing people, red-tagging, and spreading fake news,” Rep. Castro, speaking in Filipino, claimed.
“Atty. Claire Castro is not even my relative, and until now VP Duterte cannot properly answer where and how she spent the P125 million confidential funds last December 2022,” she added.
Duterte during an ambush interview in Negros Occidental was asked about Undersecretary Castro’s claims that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s ratings dropped because he fell victim to misinformation and disinformation.
According to Duterte, they have all been victims of “fake news”, adding that she had a negative experience with Castros.
“Ah, all of us are victims of fake news right? You too are victims… you know, I had a bad experience with the Castro surname, with France Castro, because nothing good came out of that woman’s mouth,” she said in Filipino.
“Maybe her cousin Claire Castro is also like that. Maybe they come from a single family branch,” Duterte added.
Not related
This is not the first time that both Castros clarified that they are not related. Last February 25 — shortly after her appointment at the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) — Undersecretary Castro said she is not related to Rep. Castro, and that they just share a fairly common surname.
READ: PCO Usec. Claire Castro says of Rep. France Castro: We’re not sisters
“We’re not related, we just have the same surname,” Claire told Palace reporters.
Despite the lack of a relationship, both Castros have been critical of Duterte. Rep. Castro has been credited as one of the first lawmakers to call out and scrutinize the issues with CFs lodged at the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd).
During the deliberations for the 2024 national budget, Rep. Castro asked the Commission on Audit to investigate the presence of CF in OVP’s 2022 budget. The original version of the OVP fund crafted during the time of former vice president Leni Robredo did not have any appropriation.
Robredo’s term expired the morning of June 30 while Duterte — who won in the 2022 national elections along with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — started her term in the afternoon of the same day. This means while Duterte is vice president from July to December 2022, the office’s budget was crafted and submitted by Robredo’s OVP.
READ: Party-list solon to COA: Probe VP Sara’s P125-M confidential funds in 2022
Undersecretary Castro meanwhile has called out the incumbent Vice President several times, recently hitting her criticism of the program’s rice subsidy program which led to prices going down to P20 per kilogram.
READ: Palace on Sara Duterte’s reply to P20-per-kg rice: ‘Don’t be a termite’
According to the cabinet official, Duterte should not act like a “termite.”
