Lacson disputes VP camp’s P500-M claim

Senator Ping Lacson fired back at Vice President Sara Duterte’s camp after it blamed the Senate majority for allowing prosecutors to drop three of the four impeachment articles, allegedly wasting P500 million in taxpayers’ money.

Lacson challenged Duterte’s spokesperson, Paolo Panelo Jr., to explain how he arrived at an estimate of P25 million in impeachment operating costs per day, which allegedly totaled P500 million in supposed squandered public funds over 20 trial days devoted to Articles 1 and 4.

Lacson said Panelo may have made an “honest mistake” and urged him to rectify his “obviously misleading” figures, noting that the P25 million in daily operations refers to the Senate’s — a legislative body — regular operating expenses, “not to the impeachment trial as misinterpreted.”

“As far as I know, the GAA 2025 budget for the impeachment trial, most of which has remained unspent (only roughly P2 million was disbursed for the judges’ robes and other items) from the original P27.5 million, is now being used under the ‘continuing appropriations’ provision in the General Appropriations Act,” Lacson stressed.

In June, Lacson cited the same P25 million-per-day figure when sharply criticizing the short-lived stint of then-Senate president Alan Cayetano, who served only 28 days, claiming the period produced zero legislative output and wasted an estimated P700 million in public funds.

“The P25M per day clearly refers to the legislative functions of the Senate, not to the impeachment trial as misinterpreted, and the basis was the maintenance and other operating expenses and personnel services (for one year which I computed on a per-day basis when the Cayetano-led boycott resulted in zero legislative output due to lack of quorum after his ouster as Senate President,” he added.

Panelo criticized the Senate majority for its “lack of outrage,” suggesting it was tolerating the prosecution’s actions.

Aside from resources, he argued that the time devoted to the impeachment proceedings could have been used for meaningful discussion and passage of key bills addressing the country’s pressing needs.

“Who is going to hold them accountable? A judge in a regular court would have at least given the prosecution a proper tongue-lashing for wasting its time if this happened there. So why the quiet?” Panelo lamented.

“Is it because convicting the Vice President earlier may reduce the damage to senator-judges seeking elective posts in 2028? The silence is deafening. Don’t be too obvious,” he added.

Senator JV Ejercito, chair of the Senate finance committee, said they have already spent three months hearing the prosecution’s evidence in the impeachment since it began on 6 July.

He argued that lawmakers could have used the time to complete committee-level budget hearings, which the simultaneous impeachment proceedings had disrupted.

Both Ejercito and Senator Bong Go said the defense should have been given an equal opportunity to present its case and rebut the allegations in the interest of due process.