Vice President Sara Duterte spent nearly P30 million in seven months in 2023 during her stint as secretary of the Department of Education (DepEd) to deter the recruitment of teachers and students by terrorist groups, but did not submit any documents to show the funds were ultimately used for counter-insurgency efforts.

The findings were presented by Commission on Audit (CoA) auditor Roderick Wamil on the 12th day of Duterte’s impeachment trial on Tuesday, his second appearance as a prosecution witness.

Prosecution counsel Lorna Kapunan posed several questions to Wamil, including whether the DepEd provided lists of teachers, students, and communist and leftist groups to show the success of the counter-insurgency programs for which the DepEd used its confidential and intelligence funds (CIF).

“They did not submit any,” Wamil responded.

The DepEd received three quarterly CIF allocations of P37.5 million each in 2023, for a total of P112.5 million. The first covered the period from 20 February to 30 March, the second 20 April to 29 June, and the third 12 July to 29 September.

Of the P112.5 million total, P27.9 million was spent on the counter-emergency program, which DepEd received in three tranches.

The first tranche accounted for P9.4 million, the second for P9.3 million, and the third for P9.2 million.

Kapunan presented three physical and financial plans of the DepEd, all of which were approved by Duterte, as attested to by Wamil who audited the agency’s CIF spending as well as that of the Office of the Vice President (OVP).

The physical and financial plans outlined an agency’s expected operational targets and their corresponding allocations broken down by specific time periods.

However, Wamil told the Senate court that the documents in question contained no evidence that the confidential funds were actually used for counter-insurgency operations.

“Based on this document for the counter-insurgency program, the expected outcome was to prevent any recruitment by the NPA (New People’s Army) and other communist and leftist groups of teachers and students,” Wamil said, adding that the DepEd did not enumerate specific confidential activities in the physical and financial plans for which the CIF was intended.

Background check for teachers, learners

The P27.9 million for counter-insurgency was on top of P27.2 million the DepEd reportedly spent on similar operations or anti-extremism and terrorism programs to gather information and intensify background investigations of DepEd personnel and learners allegedly involved with terrorist groups.

Similarly, the DepEd launched anti-illegal operations to strengthen surveillance within the department and curb illicit activities in schools.

The program was allocated over P27.2 million and was also spent in three quarters. The two programs also lacked documents proving the success of the activities.

The lion’s share of the DepEd’s confidential funds, amounting to P30.2 million, was reportedly allocated for abuse prevention and control in public schools. However, Wamil said no supporting evidence — such as lists of beneficiary schools or records of specific abuse cases — was submitted to the CoA for verification.

The lack of supporting documents for these activities, according to Wamil, was a clear violation of Joint Memorandum Circular No. 2015-01 governing the use of CIF.

According to the auditor, the JMC requires all requests for and allocations of confidential and intelligence funds to clearly identify the specific program or activity they are intended to support, among other details, to enable proper audit and verification.

Another clear case of non-compliance by the DepEd under Duterte’s tenure was the approval of cash advances by an undersecretary rather than the secretary

Wamil supervised the audit of the P612.5 million in confidential and intelligence funds allocated to the Office of the Vice President (P500 million) and the Department of Education (P112.5 million) from the last quarter of 2022 through 2023 while serving with the Commission on Audit’s Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office.

During direct examination by Kapunan on Tuesday, Wamil revealed that he was called to a meeting in September 2023 with OVP chief of Staff Zuleika Lopez and then DepEd chief of Staff Michael Poa to discuss the liquidation process for CIF.

Wamil recalled that Lopez and Poa asked him to issue an “audit query” instead of the mandatory audit observation memorandum (AOM) if there were any findings regarding the OVP’s and the DepEd’s use of CIF.

However, Wamil said he followed the JMC rules, which require that audit findings necessitate a formal AOM.

The CoA typically issues an AOM to state agencies to address financial or operational deficiencies found during an audit, such as accounting errors, weaknesses, or missing papers and to request explanations or missing documents from the flagged department within a specified period.