Sara's series of interviews made to divert issue on secret, disallowed funds: House leaders

House leaders strongly criticized the recent releases of Vice President Sara Duterte's taped interviews, claiming they were intended to deflect attention from her need to explain alleged irregularities in the management of both her office's and the Department of Education's (DepEd) funds during her tenure. 

Since Monday, Duterte's office has been releasing a series of recorded interviews in which she addressed issues against her, including the alleged misuse of her offices' P125 million confidential funds and expenses of the DepEd, which she headed for nearly two years.

"Now, they are trying to make a basis for the impeachment against me. Talks about my impeachment are not new to me. That's part of their plan against me," Duterte said in Filipino in her latest video.

She also alleged that the House's plan to "defund" her office's request for a P2.037 billion budget is also part of the political attack against her. 

However, in a press conference on Wednesday, House Deputy Majority Leader Jude Acidre expressed frustration with Duterte airing all the allegations in what he described as a "scripted television interview."

"If she has a lot to say, why didn't she say it when she was here in Congress when we could have made everyone mentioned accountable?" Acirde told reporters.

"It's obviously an attempt to divert the issues that could have been properly treated in Congress during the appropriations committee hearing. All these claims about the leadership and confidential funds are very disheartening," Acidre added. 

1-Rider Partylist Rep. Ramon Gutierrez said his peers' mounting queries on how she utilized the secret funds are warranted and that Duterte merely "refuses to take [accountability]."

“To say that dahil lang sa CIF (confidential and intelligence funds) iyong topic of questions, I don't think that's true because it's precisely during that hearing I admittedly maybe 90 percent iyong tanong tungkol sa CIF kasi iyon yung hot topic,” Guttierez explained. 

"We just received a notice of disallowance. We just received the CoA (Commission on Audit ) reports, and mind you, the dates were 2024. We could have asked this in 2023. So, this was the right time to ask these questions," he added.

Out of P125 million secret funds of Duterte in 2022, P73.287 million was disallowed by CoA. 

Based on the CoA's notice of disallowance, the OVP spent P69.8 million on reward payments, of which P10 million was in cash, P34.857 million on various goods, and P24.93 million on medicines.

The CoA flagged the spending due to the absence of "documents evidencing the success of information gathering and/or surveillance activities" to support these rewards.

The remaining P3.5 million was used to pay for chairs, desktop computers, and printers, but the OVP failed to specify that the said funds were intended for confidential operations or activities, according to state auditors.

Gutierrez suspected that the timing of the release of Duterte's interviews was purposely released in sync with the budget proceedings in Congress to "divert" the issue on CIF.

Meanwhile, House Assistant Majority Leader Zia Adiong, the OVP's budget sponsor, asserted that "the ones that are accusing us of politicking are the ones who are actually doing the politicking." 

House Assistant Majority Leader Paolo Ortega V concurred with Adiong.

"The House is very constructive when it comes to questions. Nothing personal, nothing political," he said.

Aside from the alleged misuse of the P125 million confidential funds, Duterte also left the DepEd with a whopping P12.3 billion in disallowances, suspensions, and charges that remained unsettled by the year-end of 2023.

The VP has denied that there was a misuse of the said funds.

Duterte and the entire OVP skipped the second round of deliberations on their office's budget on Tuesday, prompting lawmakers to propose a deep cut in their proposed P2.037 billion expenditure for fiscal year 2025.