With information that some of the confidential funds under the Office of the Vice President (OVP) were supposedly utilized for medicine, House Deputy Speaker Rep. Paolo Ortega questioned whether the office’s informants were satisfied with such compensation.

“I worry for the informant that used confidential funds, maybe they were all sick, because they were paid with medicine. If I were their informant, I wouldn’t accept medicine, I would prefer compensation because I would be providing important information,” Ortega said during a press conference at the Senate.

The lawmakers’ sentiment stemmed from a finding of the Commission on Audit (COA) that P42 million in the confidential funds of the OVP during the first quarter 2023 were supposedly used for medical and food assistance based on the testimony of a former state auditor Atty. Roderick Wamil.

Wamil, who was a former official under the COA Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office (ICFAO), told the impeachment court that the expenditures were not supported with any documentary evidence–a matter that he said was a violation of a line item under Joint Circular No. 2015-01.

“These do not fall among those enumerated under Item 4.8 of the 2015 Joint Circular. Thus, the same should not be charged against the confidential fund of the agency,” he explained.

Aside from the purchase of items, another factor that the former state auditor said was an expenditure that remained unmarked was an amount of P10 million that was used for incentives and other travel-related expenses that were similarly absent of any supporting documents.

Wamil likewise stated that similar to withdrawals and expenditures that were conducted during the same year, there was no proof that there were any successful intelligence operations based on payments made to informants of the OVP.

Due to the lack of receipts and documents aside from acknowledgement receipts, the lawyer said that there was a presumption–in accordance with the joint circular–that COA established a presumption that the millions in funds were used for personal matters.

Article I stemmed from OVP staff failures

Considering the testimonies of the prosecution witness, Ortega underscored that Article I of the impeachment could have been avoided had there been “complete staff work” on the part of the OVP.

The solon stressed that the pattern of rushed documents could have led to the creation of the aliases which have revoked loomed over the alleged misuse of confidential funds of Duterte, namely Mary Grace Piattos, Andy Lim, and Nova Santos just to name a few.

“If the documents were complete, we wouldn’t have reached this stage…red flags and questions were only raised because the process was not followed. Again, if it had complete staff work, we would not be talking about the aliases,” he said.

Ortega stressed that documentary deficiencies could not be present when the discussion was concerning such a huge amount of public funds.