VP Sara, subordinates may face plunder raps over P612.5M

Aside from the five impeachable offenses, including graft and corruption, Vice President Sara Duterte, together with her subordinates from both the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd), may face plunder charges over the unexplained use of P612.5 million in confidential funds, House lawmakers said Monday.

At the eighth hearing of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability, lawmakers presented allegations of violations ranging from malversation, falsification, bribery, and perjury to plunder that Duterte and her key staff may have potentially committed.

“Let me remind the public of what is at stake here: it would constitute graft and corruption if public funds are misused or misappropriated or worse, if funds are diverted to personal use or benefit. And given the amount we are talking about here, this is clearly plunder,” Antipolo Rep. Romeo Acop, panel vice chair, said in his opening statement.

Duterte is under intense scrutiny amid allegations of irregularities in the utilization of the P612.5 million in confidential funds allocated to the OVP (P500 million) and the DepEd (P112.5 million) in 2022 and 2023, which were allegedly supported by fictitious acknowledgment receipts (ARs).

Her special disbursing officers — Gina Acosta of the OVP and Edward Fajarda of DepEd — identified Colonels Raymund Dante Lachica and Dennis Nolasco as responsible for the P125 million and P37.5 million in confidential funds, respectively.

During the previous hearing, Acosta and Fajarda told the panel that they turned over the funds to the two military officers, which lawmakers stressed was a clear violation of Joint Memorandum Circular No. 2015-01, mandating that the special disbursing officer shall be solely responsible for overseeing the funds.

Acop emphasized the gravity of such an action, citing a lack of transparency and accountability, which he described as a blatant disregard of the law.

Although Acosta and Fajarda insisted they merely complied with Duterte’s orders to release the confidential funds to Lachica and Nolasco, lawmakers earlier argued that their ignorance of the joint circular could still land them in jail for technical malversation, if not plunder, given the funds in question surpassed the plunder threshold of P50 million.

Can’t turn a blind eye

Members of the panel have repeatedly stated that the sole purpose of the probe is to aid legislation and that they will leave it to investigative bodies to pursue the filing of criminal charges against the vice president.

However, Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro said they could not ignore the glaring “abuses and infractions” that Duterte and her cohorts have allegedly committed against the law.

She warned that all officers involved in the questionable utilization of the funds could be charged with plunder should they remain defiant in explaining the whereabouts of the subject funds.

1-Rider Partylist Rep. Ramon Gutierrez said the probe findings indicate that Duterte and her subordinates heavily violated the joint circular governing the use of confidential funds.

“Throughout the course of seven hearings, we have brought detail to some long-held suspicions: the Confidential Funds of the OVP and DepEd had been abused, or malversed, or perhaps, even taken,” he said, noting that they took advantage of gaps of the circular.

He noted that those involved took advantage of gaps in the circular.

Panel chairperson Joel Chua stressed the urgent need to implement safeguards on confidential funds to prevent government officials from exploiting and abusing them. He said a proper system must be in place to ensure the Commission on Audit (CoA) could strictly monitor how such funds are spent.

"It is time to implement stricter rules on the use of confidential funds, for confidential expenses," Chua said, calling for reforms to ensure transparency without compromising legitimate national security concerns.

"Once the confidential funds are used for their purpose, there is no reason not to be open and transparent," the chair added.

Ongoing investigations

Both Lachica and Nolasco are currently under investigation by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), which earlier said it would review the potential administrative liability of the two military officers.

Lachica is the commander of the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group, while Nolasco was DepEd’s designated security officer.

The P125 million represented the confidential funds allocated to the OVP for the last quarter of 2022 and were utilized within just 11 days in December of that year. The OVP subsequently received an additional P125 million per quarter for the first three quarters of 2023.

Meanwhile, the P37.5 million, a portion of the P112.5 million in secret funds of the DepEd during Duterte’s tenure as its secretary, was encashed as a cash advance by Fajarda during the first quarter of 2023, with two additional checks of the same amount withdrawn in subsequent quarters.