OVP spent over P34.4M in travel expenses in 2024: COA

Vice President Sara Duterte’s office spent over P34.4 million in travel expenses, covering both local and foreign trips, in 2024, the latest financial records released by the Commission on Audit (COA) showed. 

This is in addition to P20.68 million travel expenses sustained by the OVP from January to July this year, during which she frequently travelled abroad to visit his detained father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.

The 2024 audit report for the agency, uploaded on the COA website on 1 December, disclosed that the OVP incurred P28.7 million in local travels, and P5.7 million for foreign, totalling P34,425,801.58.

The audit report, however, did not specify the places and countries Duterte and her staff travelled to.

Local travel expenses mainly cover transportation and other costs incurred by the vice president, her immediate staff and security, and protection group (VPSPG), among others, who are in charge of ground works, implementation, and monitoring of the OVP’s program and operations, including nationwide disaster relief operations.

Foreign travel expenses, on the other hand, cover daily subsistence allowance and other expenses sustained by Duterte’s entourage, including her VPSG in foreign engagements.

The P34.4 million was relatively lower than the travel expenses incurred by Duterte’s office in 2023, aggregating to P42.8 million. 

The 2024 budget of the OVP was pegged at P1.9 billion, P112.6 million of which covers the salaries and wages of both regular and contractual, with P94.2 million and P18.5 million, respectively. 

Audit findings revealed that Duterte had 335 VPSPG last year, who were classified as non-plantilla or non-permanent employees.

The VPSPG accounts for the biggest chunk of the overall OVP personnel at 42.9 percent. 

The Armed Forces of the Philippines activated the VPSPG, a military unit dedicated to safeguarding the vice president and her family, in June 2022, shortly after Duterte took office.

An investigation by the House of Representatives last year revealed that some of the OVP’s confidential funds were supposedly disbursed to security personnel of the OVP, including Col. Raymund Dante Lachica, the former head of the VPSPG.

The audit report showed that the OVP had 165  plantilla positions last year: 99 were co-terminus, 63 were permanent, two were presidential appointees, and one was elected.

The VPSPG, meanwhile, comprised the non-plantilla positions, along with 240 contract of service, 34 contractual and casual, four consultants, and three DFA protocol officers, totalling 616. 

During the OVP’s budget hearing in the House in September, Duterte insisted that she personally shouldered all expenses related to her travels since 2024, though the government incurred more than P7.47 million for the travel costs of her security and staff as of 31 July of this year. The said amount only covers nine trips.