Sara’s House snub, Senate appearance ‘politicking’

Vice President Sara Duterte’s plan to attend her office’s budget hearings in the Senate after snubbing them twice in the House of Representatives drew condemnation Sunday.

House Deputy Majority Leader Jude Acidre said it is Duterte who is clearly engaged in “politicking” after announcing her intention to attend the Senate budget deliberations.

Duterte, according to Acidre, was merely citing political differences as a convenient excuse for refusing to attend House hearings after she was grilled over her use of the so-called confidential funds.

“At least now people know who is really politicking,” Acidre added.

The Office of the Vice President’s allocation was slashed in the House from the initial request of P2.026 billion to P733.198 million, as members noted her “overextended” offices.

House members also defunded social services components of the OVP’s proposed budget for overlapping with those of government agencies like the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

In an interview last week, Duterte singled out House Speaker Martin Romualdez as the driving force behind his colleagues allegedly ganging up on her.

But Ako Bicol Rep. Elizalde Co, chairperson of the House Committee on Appropriations, cited Duterte’s “poor track record” in handling public resources as their reason for scrutinizing her budget.

Fight for presidency

The House also quizzed Duterte about a children’s book she purportedly authored for which she sought P10 million in funding for printing. The book, titled “Isang Kaibigan,” was not plagiarized from a US book, according to the Vice President.

Duterte’s book was criticized by House members for allegedly containing numerous grammatical and other errors.

The Vice President claimed that “defunding” her office was part of a political attack against her ahead of the 2025 and 2028 elections.

Political observers have raised the possibility of a two-way fight between Duterte and Romualdez for the presidency in 2028.

Duterte insinuated earlier that the House had been plotting to impeach her as early as mid-last year — an allegation repeatedly denied by House leaders.

Acidre emphasized that her political disagreement with the House should not come at the expense of public interest.

“She has chosen to put that partisan interest, to put that political consideration way above the people’s right to full disclosure… public trust,” he stressed, citing her alleged presidential ambition.

“The accountability and the power of the House over the purse is significant over the other chamber,” he added, explaining why they went over Duterte’s proposed budget with a fine-toothed comb.

The bill pertaining to the annual national budget of the government emanates from the House and goes to the Senate for scrutiny and approval before being brought to the President for signing.

The Senate will have until 18 October to scrutinize the 2025 budget. Once approved, the House and the Senate will meet as one body in a bicameral panel to harmonize the disagreeing provisions of their respective versions of the 2025 General Appropriations Bill.

Impeachment

Duterte said she no longer expects her original budget proposal to be reinstated by the bicameral committee, as it has among its members Co and Romualdez.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., a cousin of Romualdez, and Duterte ran and won via landslide under a coalition of different parties.

Duterte’s “misuse” of her contentious P125 million confidential funds in 2022, of which over P73 million was disallowed by the Commission on Audit (CoA), is enough ground for her impeachment, a House leader said weeks ago.

The CoA had ordered the OVP to return P73.287 million of the P125 million “secret” expenses it incurred in 11 days since they were disallowed.

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 worth of medicines.

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

The remaining P3.5 million was used to pay for chairs, desktop computers, and printers, with the OVP failing to specify that the funds were intended for confidential operations or activities.