Resource persons must take ‘truth’ oath in House hearings – solon

FILE PHOTO: Manila 3rd District Rep. Joel Chua says resource persons will no longer be allowed to avoid taking the oath to tell the truth during hearings of the House of Representatives. INQUIRER FILES

MANILA, Philippines — Resource persons will no longer be allowed to avoid taking the oath to tell the truth during hearings of the House of Representatives.

Manila 3rd District Rep. Joel Chua said what Vice President Sara Duterte did during the House committee on good government and public accountability hearing last week would not set a precedent for other resource persons.

Duterte refused to take her oath during that hearing, which discussed a lawmaker’s privileged speech about issues surrounding the budget of her office. This forced lawmakers to instead direct questions to other resource persons.

“All of the witnesses and resource persons are required to take an oath for us to know if they are saying the truth and nothing but the truth,” the panel head said in a statement Sunday.

“This does not mean that this incident, because we allowed a resource person not to take an oath, would be the precedent for the next committee hearings.  That would not happen,” he added.

According to Chua, what Duterte did during the committee hearing last September 18 is a contemptible action, but they chose to let it slide out of respect for the Office of the Vice President.

Chua, however, noted that the committee’s leniency in that instance was an exception and should not be seen as a deviation from established rules.

“In fact, this is a ground for witnesses to be cited for contempt.  But out of respect for the office of our Vice President, we overlook this and let it go,” he explained.

“We allowed our Honorable Vice President to refrain from taking an oath… out of respect for her position and her office which she represents as Vice President,” he added.

On September 18, the House committee on good government and public accountability held its first hearing regarding the privilege speech of Manila 2nd District Rep. Rolando Valeriano last September 3, which questioned the OVP’s presentation of its 2025 budget during deliberations.

READ: OVP urged to prove financial aid beneficiaries are real

According to Valeriano, the OVP has stated in their 2025 budget proposal that there are 977,615 beneficiaries for their socioeconomic programs, but he believes it cannot be ascertained if the beneficiaries are real people and not ghost beneficiaries.

Also, it was revealed during budget deliberations that some OVP programs had a low utilization rate. For example, OVP’s Magnegosyo Ta Day only used 0.04 percent – or P600,000 out of P150 million – of the program’s allocation as of December 2023.

At the start of the September 18 hearing, Chua ordered the committee secretariat to administer the oath, to tell the truth to resource persons.  Duterte, however, objected to this, noting that she is only a resource person — and that committee rules supposedly state that only witnesses are required to take such an oath.

Chua then told the vice president that these are only interchangeable terms. Eventually, the chairperson allowed Duterte to refrain from taking an oath.

But several lawmakers were not happy with what happened, reminding Duterte that transparency is not optional for public officials.

In separate manifestations on Wednesday, members of the House committee on good government and public accountability said Duterte’s refusal to take the oath to tell the truth seemed like she did not want the truth to come out.

“Such refusal can damage the public’s perception of integrity in public office. The Filipino people deserve honesty and openness from their leaders, especially when their actions are being scrutinized,” Antipolo 2nd District Rep. Romeo Acop said.

READ: House panel slashes VP Duterte’s budget by over 60%

A sworn oath is administered to resource persons and witnesses in congressional hearings, especially during inquiries in aid of legislation.

This is not the first time that a high-ranking official was invited to legislative hearings.  In December 2017, former president Benigno S. Aquino III attended the Senate probe on the controversial anti-dengue vaccine, Dengvaxia.

Aquino and several officials under his administration took an oath, to tell the truth before the committee at the beginning of the probe.

Duterte and the OVP are currently under fire after budget hearings at the House revealed different issues on how their confidential funds in 2022 and 2023 were spent.

No less than House Majority Leader and Zamboanga City 2nd District Rep. Manuel Jose Dalipe previously said that Duterte may be held liable for graft if she cannot explain how public funds allocated to her office were utilized, particularly regarding items with adverse findings from the Commission on Audit (COA).

The COA handed out a notice of disallowance against P73.2 million of the OVP’s P125 million confidential fund for 2022 – an item that several lawmakers said should not be available in the first place, as the original budget crafted under former vice president Leni Robredo did not have any secret fund.