Vice President Sara Duterte’s long-time aide and current chief of staff, lawyer Zuleika Lopez, drew the ire of a House panel for repeatedly denying any knowledge in the utilization of the P500 million in confidential funds allocated to their office.

Lopez, who earlier fled the country in the midst of the congressional probe into the Office of the Vice President’s alleged fund misuse, made her first appearance before the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability on Wednesday, following a series of summons.

At a previous hearing, OVP career officials, including Administrative and Financial Services Director Rosalynne Sanchez, pointed to Lopez and Special Disbursing Officer (SDO) Gina Acosta as those solely responsible along with Duterte for overseeing the multimillion-peso confidential funds of the office.

Lopez vehemently denied before the committee any involvement in the expenditure of the funds in question. This includes the release of disbursement vouchers, checks, and accomplishment reports, which were signed by Duterte herself and Acosta.

The disbursement vouchers enabled Acosta to disburse the P500 million OVP secret fund in four installments of P125 million each.

Acosta works under Lopez who claimed that she had no in-depth knowledge about the former’s duties and responsibilities as SDO, saying that her role in the office was as admin officer.

She maintained that she did not know about the transactions “because they never really passed through me.”

“Your honor, because that is the truth. I really have no personal knowledge as regards the matter of confidential funds,” Lopez told the panel.

The lawmakers, however, argued that Lopez could not claim ignorance, as she was the immediate supervisor of Acosta, who was heavily involved in the disbursement of the funds.

“I’m just wondering Attorney Zuleika, you are the CoS. Who therefore is assisting the Vice President as to the documents that she should sign and she should not sign?” Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro asked.

“I thought it was you, being the chief of staff. Why did you not assist her at all with all these important documents concerning the utilization of confidential funds?” Luistro added.

Lopez responded, “There are certain areas [and information] in the Office of the Vice President that I’m not really privy to. Much as I want to give a definitive answer, these are matters or information that are not available to me.”

Luistro, however, pointed out that it was “really unbelievable for a chief of staff to have known nothing about the utilization of the huge amount of P125 million, not even one of the several items that was mentioned in the accomplishment report.”

Meanwhile, Deputy Speaker David Suarez said Lopez was “trying to paint an image of a chief of staff.”

In denial

In August, the House Committee on Appropriations issued a subpoena duces tecum, demanding that the Commission on Audit (CoA) submit its report on the use of the confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education (DepEd) for fiscal year 2022-2023.

Duterte headed the DepEd for nearly two years before resigning on 19 July. During her tenure, the agency was allocated P125 million in confidential funds for the first time in its history.

Lopez confirmed to the lawmakers that she wrote a letter to the CoA, appealing not to release the documents pending the OVP’s response to the audit reports.

“In this letter, you were asking the CoA not to comply with the subpoena issued by Congress,” Suarez said.

“In my view, this is one way of covering the truth. Because if you have nothing to hide, why would you ask an agency not to share documents regarding an investigation conducted by another agency,” he averred.