By Alfred Gabot, Editor in Chief

 

 

QUEZON CITY – Departing from tradition of respect to the second highest office of the land, the House of Representatives made good its plan to slash the proposed P2 billion budget of the Office of the Vice President by more than half as some lawmakers called on Vice President Sara Duterte to just resign due to her failure to personally defend her budget before the Lower Chamber of Congress.

 

As the House approved on third and final reading the proposed P6.352 trillion national budget for 2025 with cuts on OVP’s outlay, it may not be all lost for Duterte as several senators have defended her budget and plan to restore the same when the appropriations bill goes to the Senate for consideration.

 

Duterte, however, downplayed the plans of several senators supporting her.

 

Duterte, a lawyer and former mayor of Davao City, immediately rejected calls for her to resign saying she was answerable to 32 million Filipinos who voted for her 2022. 

 “I will not respond to the ‘Young Guns’ because I answer to 32 million who voted for me and not to just one or two people. I am not stepping down because the people put me here believing I will work for the country,” she said.

The ‘Young Guns’ is a group of House members who are 40 years old and below, some of them party-list representatives and only on their first terms in congress.

The Vice President earlier accused some lawmakers of plotting her impeachment in a bid to dismantle her potential 2028 presidential bid and investigations and slashing of the budget of her office were part of the plan.

“Sa tingin ko sa nangyayari wala silang kaso sa impeachment kaya sila hanap ng hanap sa kung ano gagamitin nila… Gumawa sila ng isa pang track na resignation,” she said.

“They are trying to make a case for impeachment… dahil wala silang ebidensya, nagfi-fishing sila sa mga tanong sa loob,” she said.

The House Appropriations Committee earlier slashed the OVP’s proposed P2-billion 2025 budget to about P700 million and its recommendation was retained by the House plenary when it approved the entire proposed appropriation bill for 2025.

 

With 285 affirmative votes, 3 negative votes and zero abstention, the chamber approved House Bill 10800 or the 2025 General Appropriations Bill (GAB).

 

Duterte has repeatedly said that she has no plans to run for president in 2028. Her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, said one president in the family would be enough.

 “Tama na yung isang presidente sa isang pamilya,” Duterte said during the Partido Demokratiko Pilipinas-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) national assembly in Davao City.

Three political families have produced six of the country’s 17 presidents: Diosdado Macapagal and his daughter Gloria Macapagal Arroyo; Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and his son Ferdinand Marcos Jr.; and Corazon Aquino and her son Benigno Simeon Aquino III.

Duterte made the statement after being asked about the possible presidential candidacy of his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, in 2028.

“Give it also to others,” said the elder Duterte who was reported to be planning for senator in 2025 but has denied the plan.

The non-commissioned survey by Oculum Research and Analytics showed that Sara Duterte topped the list of preferred presidential candidates in the 2028 elections as of the second quarter of 2024.

However, support for her significantly dropped to 25.4% from 42% she garnered in the first quarter survey.Earlier this week, the Vice President said that she would announce her election plans 
 in 2026, or roughly a year before filing the certificate of candidacy for the 2028 polls. 

The Vice President last week visited former presidential candidate and Vice President Leni Robredo in her home in Naga City as the Bicol region celebrated the Our Lady of Penafrancia Festival.

Former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr. and Interior and Local Government Secretary Benjamin Benhur Abalos Jr. also visited Robredo but Duterte’s visit was widely reported and criticized.

Robredo and Duterte said nothing about politics was discussed during their hour-long meeting amid speculations of possible political alliance.

“Pag Peñafrancia dito sa amin, wala naman kulay ng pulitikang tinitingnan,” said Robredo, who is running for mayor of Naga City in the 2025 election.

 “Walang partido. Politically neutral dito lahat. Lahat ng pumupunta para kay Ina ay welcome dito sa amin,” she said.

Robredo explained that her family has been receiving politicians from various political parties during the Feast of the Peñafrancia since the late 1980s when her husband — late Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo — first became a local chief executive.

The Office of the Vice President earlier released a statement saying that a Bicolano friend invited Duterte to visit Bicol during the feast of the Peñafrancia.

“The same friend also arranged a casual meeting with former Vice President Leni Robredo,” the statement read.

“During her stay in Naga, Vice President Duterte visited several prominent Bicol personalities and heard mass with ordinary Bicolanos,” it also read.

“Former VP Leni Robredo was in Naga for the Penafrancia Festival. While she was there, VP Sara Duterte visited her at her house,” Gutierrez said.

According to Gutierrez, the conversation during Duterte’s visit was “personal and not political.”

Meanwhile, the high-profile probe into VP Duterte’s alleged misuse of public funds involves amounts that breach the legal threshold for plunder, according to a Manila congressman who head the House panel chairperson leading the inquiry.

Duterte has repeteadly denied accusations of funds misuse, saying the records speak for themselves.

The Vice President denied there was misuse of public funds in the OVP. She said that if there were audit findings or legitimate cases, she would “gladly” respond to them before the Commission on Audit or the courts.

“We have not done anything wrong. There is no misuse of funds,” Duterte said.

She also claimed that the proceedings were “no ordinary legislative inquiry”, but ” a well-funded and coordinated political attack.”

“This much is evident from the very words of the privilege speech that prompted this inquiry. A speech that simply meant to say do not vote for Sara on 2028,” she said.

“Sa totoo lang, hindi naman ang budget ang puntirya ninyo, dahil napakadali naman magtanggal ng budget. What you are trying to do is make a case for impeachment. I will not allow myself to be subjected to an inquiry based on an empty privilege speech just so you can attack me and do indirectly what you failed to do directly during the budget hearings,” Duterte added.

The probe was triggered by the privilege speech of Manila City Second District Rep. Rolando Valeriano, who criticized Duterte’s “unwillingness” to respond to several lawmakers’ questions about her office’s fund utilization before the House Committee on Appropriations. The lawmaker also challenged the VP to show proof of beneficiaries in its socio-economic programs.

Rep. Joel Chua (Manila, 3rd District), a lawyer and chairperson of the House good government committee, said the “sheer vastness” of the funds being scrutinized justifies the continued conduct of the hearings, which Duterte has repeatedly criticized for being a political attack against her. 

“[The] sheer vastness of these potentially misused funds sets this matter apart from other instances of irregularity and disallowance – these amounts easily surpass the threshold for the crime of plunder under our laws,” Chua said in statement at the start of the House panel’s second hearing.

The House panel is intent on getting to the bottom of the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) alleged irregularities under Duterte, which Chua described as having “astronomical, almost unimaginable amount of money involved.”

Under Philippine laws, the crime of plunder can only be committed by government officials who acquire ill-gotten wealth worth P50 million. 

Duterte is being accused of misusing the confidential funds she received in 2022 after state auditors flagged the OVP’s utilization of the secret fund. 

Specifically, the Commission on Audit issued a notice of disallowance on P73 million of the P125-million confidential funds the OVP received in 2022, which Duterte’s office spent in 11 days. 

A notice of disallowance means the transaction was disapproved either in whole or in part. An agency that receives this notice is being asked to return what they spent to government coffers as the transaction was deemed unnecessary, excessive, extravagant or illegal.  

“What we have seen regarding the usage by the OVP of its confidential funds certainly gives this committee – and the country – cause to want to find out the facts behind this,” Chua said.