Clarity at last?

Last Friday, 12 December, civil society leaders filed a plunder complaint before the Ombudsman against Vice President Sara Duterte. At the heart of it is the alleged misuse of P612.5 million in confidential funds allocated to the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education in 2022 and 2023. 

This is not a minor accounting dispute or a paperwork issue blown out of proportion. This is a serious allegation that a staggering amount of public money was siphoned off through questionable transactions, including payments to 1,094 supposed recipients, among them the now notorious “Mary Grace Piattos.”

We have been here before, of course. When questions about these funds first surfaced, the Vice President’s go to shield was “national security.” It was said as if the mere utterance of the phrase should end all discussion. 

But that excuse has never held water. Under the law, even confidential funds are subject to a special audit. National security is not a magic incantation that allows public officials to submit fake receipts, invent recipients, or use false names in official liquidation reports. That is not secrecy. That is deception. And under our laws, it is a criminal act.

These issues should have been fully aired months ago during the impeachment proceedings in the Senate. Instead, what we got was a shutdown in slo-mo. Through delaying tactics by then Senate president Chiz Escudero and a much-criticized Supreme Court ruling that halted the process on questionable procedural grounds, the impeachment case was buried before the evidence could even be properly examined. 

For many Filipinos, that episode only deepened the suspicion that powerful officials are treated differently when serious questions are raised about their conduct.

The filing of the plunder case now opens a new and potentially more consequential chapter. 

Under the Constitution and the Ombudsman Law, the Ombudsman has the authority to investigate both the criminal aspect of the complaint and the question of whether impeachment proceedings should be pursued. More importantly, the Ombudsman has real investigative powers. This includes the authority to examine and access bank accounts and financial records of those involved, when warranted by the evidence.

So, for the first time, there is a clear legal pathway to follow the money. If these confidential funds were used properly, the paper trail and the bank records should confirm that. If they were not, those same records will tell a very different story. Suspicious transfers, unexplained deposits, and sudden wealth do not disappear just because someone invokes national security at a press conference.

Predictably, the Vice President and her allies have already started crying political persecution. 

Everything, they say, is politically motivated. It is a familiar script. We have heard it countless times before, usually right before officials refuse to answer questions or submit to scrutiny. But there is an equally familiar response, one that the Duterte administration itself loved to use when it was in power: “Kung wala namang kasalanan, ba’t kailangang matakot?” (If you aren’t guilty, why should you be sacred?)

At the end of the day, this is not about politics. It is about accountability. Nearly a billion pesos of public money is involved. Filipinos deserve to know where it went, who benefited, and whether the law was violated. The Ombudsman now has the opportunity and the mandate to find out. If the Vice President is truly clean, a thorough investigation will clear her name. If not, then consequences must follow.