Ombudsman ‘collating records’ on VP Sara confidential fund case
Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla said Friday that their office was in the process of collating records when it came to Vice President Sara Duterte’s alleged misuse of confidential funds.
The Ombudsman said that once gathered, it would evaluate the documents and identify whether it would be filing a case with respect to the issue.
“We are collating all the records now and we’re evaluating it so that we can actually evaluate it for proper filing if necessary,” Remulla said in a press conference.
The case of the House Prosecution Panel on Duterte’s misuse of public funds revolved around the confidential fund allocations that were allocated to the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) between 2022 and 2023.
It relied on deficiencies that were found in the liquidation reports that the respective offices submitted to the Commission on Audit (CoA) to support how the amounts were utilized for intelligence activities.
A particular finding from prosecutors flagged the names that were indicated in the acknowledgement receipts that the OVP and DepEd provided.
Prosecutors had called to the witness stand an official from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) who confirmed that names such as “Mary Grace Piattos” were not present in their records.
The PSA particularly said that out of the 1,92 individuals listed as payees of the OVP’s confidential funds, there were 1,287 that had no birth, marriage, and death records on their database.
It is worth noting that CoA had also recently affirmed with finality its disallowance of P73-million of confidential funds from the OVP, ordering for Duterte and other officials from the office to return the amount.
The said amount form just a part of the total P400-million confidential funds that the auditing agency has disallowed in recent months.
With all of the findings in the impeachment court, Remulla said that it was “very possible” that a potential case against Duterte for the misuse of the funds could be finished in a timely manner.
“Of course, our deadline at the Ombudsman is always yesterday. That’s why we always act with urgency. We just have to make sure that it will stand in court,” he said.
The Ombudsman would further express that he viewed all of the findings as “disturbing,” asserting that all forms of wrongdoings deserved to be prosecuted.
The impeachment article on Duterte’s alleged misuse of confidential funds was one of the three articles that prosecutors decided to drop, solely deciding to retain its case on her alleged unexplained wealth.
Remulla said that he would be coordinating with the panel to collect all their records, particularly those that were not presented in the trial.