House leaders reprimanded Vice President Sara Duterte on Thursday for allegedly using her staff as scapegoats while continuing to avoid addressing the controversial disbursement of her office’s multimillion-peso confidential funds.

Speaker Martin Romualdez said Duterte herself should appear before the lawmakers to answer questions on the use of the funds, rather than shifting the responsibility to her officials, whom she claimed were being persecuted by her political rivals.

“Well, then she should show up, take the oath, and explain because all of her officers don’t seem to know... I think she is the only one who knows what happened to the funds, so she should explain,” Romualdez said in an ambush interview in Albay.

“She should not pass [the responsibility] to her officials in the OVP and the DepEd. I hope she talks,” the House leader added.

Majority Leader Manuel Jose “Mannix” Dalipe also criticized Duterte for deflecting responsibility and playing the victim while allowing her staff to take the blame.

“The Vice President should stop using her staff as human shields. It is about time she faces Congress, answers the questions, and stops blaming others for her failures and fear of accountability,” Dalipe said. “This is pure cowardice disguised as victimhood.”

Duterte had previously expressed frustration that officials of her office were being caught up in a political attack meant to “malign” her.

The House of Representatives detained Duterte’s long-time aide and chief of staff, lawyer Zuleika Lopez, for five days on Wednesday after she was cited in contempt for interfering with the investigation into the confidential funds.

The House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability had invited Duterte to its inquiry multiple times, but she had consistently refused, labeling the probe a “well-funded” effort aimed at her impeachment.

Although Duterte attended the first hearing in September, she declined to take the oath, which is necessary to ensure that a resource person speaks the truth in legislative proceedings.

The probe is focused on alleged irregularities surrounding the use of P612.5 million in confidential funds allocated to the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) in 2022 and 2023, during Duterte’s tenure as Education secretary.

The Commission on Audit flagged a significant portion of the secret funds, even disallowing P73.287 million of the P125 million spent by the OVP in the last quarter of 2022.

State auditor Gloria Camora confirmed that Duterte’s office submitted 787 acknowledgment receipts (ARs) with missing names, 302 ARs with unreadable names, and five ARs with identical names.

Fake ARs?

Lawmakers have raised concerns about the authenticity of the ARs, suspecting that the documents may have been fabricated or hastily prepared to justify the use of the funds.

Dalipe told Duterte, “Seeking the truth is not an attack,” and urged her to stop evading the investigation. “It is the duty of Congress to ensure that every peso of taxpayer money is used properly and for the benefit of the people. If there’s nothing to hide, there’s no reason to dodge questions.”

Assistant Majority Leader Jil Bongalon also called on Duterte to attend the House inquiry.

“These allegations and accusations will finally be settled if the good Vice President will appear before the committee on good government and public accountability,” Bongalon said. “As we saw yesterday, no less than the chief of staff of the OVP said that she had nothing to do with the confidential fund issue.”

In Wednesday’s hearing, Lopez denied any involvement in the disbursement of the funds, pointing instead to Duterte and Special Disbursing Officer Gina Acosta as the individuals responsible for overseeing it.

Lawmakers, however, expressed skepticism, particularly after Lopez had sent a letter to the Commission on Audit requesting it to withhold compliance with a House subpoena to review the use of the confidential funds Duterte received in 2022 and 2023.