What gives, Madame VP?

What gives, Madame VP? | Daily Tribune

While the Vice President, Sara Duterte, was in Davao City enjoying the attention of members of fugitive doomsday preacher Apollo Quiboloy’s cultish Kingdom of Jesus Christ, and apologizing — again — for her asking them to elect her running mate, Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., in the 2022 elections, her ineptness as Education Secretary — the Cabinet post she held from June 2022 until July 2024 — was being unmasked by the Commission on Audit and the House of Representatives.

Legislators at the budget deliberations by the House Committee on Appropriations on Monday, 2 September, called out the Department of Education (DepEd) under then Vice President Duterte for the agency’s failure to deliver to teaching and non-teaching personnel crucial Information and Communication Technology (ICT) packages.

These included thousands of e-learning carts (eLcs) described as “rolling libraries” with laptops, smart television sets, and laptops for both teachers and non-teaching personnel paid for under DepEd’s 2023 budget; and similar equipment under continuing funds from 2022.

DepEd representatives at the budget hearing explained that for equipment funded in 2022, all 2,366 laptops for teachers and 3,161 laptops for non-teaching personnel had been delivered, likewise 91 percent of 4,067 eLcs and 337 smart TVs.

However, DepEd IT Director Ferdinand Pitagan said only three percent of 2,349 eLcs and 2,648 smart TVs funded in 2023 had been delivered to recipients because the agency wanted to exhaust the 2022 budget funds first. DepEd had a P11.361-billion budget for 2023 but only P2.075 billion had been spent by December of that year.

Meanwhile, the CoA’s DepEd audit for fiscal year 2023 when the agency was still under VP Duterte indicated that at least 21 Schools Division Offices (SDO) had issued out reports on delays and even the non-delivery of food and pasteurized milk meant for the agency’s School Based Feeding Program (SBFP) which had a P5.69-billion funding.

Unsanitary food packaging, questionable expiry dates and, worst of all, mold and pests in bread were discovered delivered to schools under DepEd regional offices in Metro Manila, Central Luzon and Northern Mindanao.

CoA teams, inspecting schools under DepEd SDO in Aurora province, found insects in Karabun/Milky buns while other food items delivered to schools were either crushed, unripe, or outright rotten.

Revelations such as these, along with the DepEd’s apparent underutilization of funds for teaching and learning equipment critically needed in public schools in contrast with the OVP’s speed in spending the P125 billion it received in 2022 is what’s astonishing to legislators.

To recall, the OVP’s P125 million CIF, which came from contingent funds from the 2022 national budget released by the Department of Budget and Management to the OVP upon approval by the Office of the President, was spent in just 11 days.

That revelation, which shocked lawmakers, meant the OVP spent some P11 million each day in an 11-day period in December 2022.

Likewise disturbing is the fact that a large chunk — P73 million — of OVP’s P125 million CIF was disallowed by CoA, a fact that came out during deliberations on the OVP’s proposed 2025 budget at the House.

State auditors flagged the OVP’s spending of P73 million for failure to submit “documents evidencing success in information gathering and/or surveillance.”

CoA’s disallowing a transaction means the agency flagged must return the funds intended for that disallowed transaction to the national government.

Those details were contained in the CoA audit report on the OVP’s CIF spending which the OVP had attempted to bar the CoA from submitting to the House, an act that Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro described in a statement as tantamount to a “suppression of public information.”

As it is, the VP has shown disdain for and irritation towards the representatives of the people asking her to explain how exactly her office had spent public funds and how it intends to use the same while she occupies the OVP. That is, if she still cares to be VP and wants to continue being part of this government.

If she does, why apologize for having successfully campaigned for the guy who currently sits as head of this government? What horrid thing has he done to you? What gives, Madame VP?