Vice President Sara Duterte has not returned any confidential funds to the government treasury, contrary to a video posted on YouTube.
Reports that Duterte spent in just 11 days in December 2022 a confidential fund amounting to P125 million from the contingency fund of the Office of the President drew widespread criticisms and demands for an explanation on how the amount was spent.
Duterte said the money was intended to ensure the implementation of projects under the Office of the Vice President (OVP). To date, there have been no announcements from the Department of Budget and Management or from the Office of the President that the OVP had returned the amount.
The video titled “VP INDAY SARA IBINALIK ANG CF FUNDS SA INYO NA IYAN” (VP Inday Sara returned the confidential funds. I’m giving it to you), which had generated 708,000 views and 11,000 likes as Tuesday, January 16, was uploaded on the YouTube channel Latest Chika ni DeDong Ompok (52,000 subscribers as of the same date). It was first posted last December 3.
The video contains an embedded voice clip of a newscast by an unnamed media outfit about a Senate hearing where Duterte was quoted as saying that she will no longer pursue the proposal for a P500-million confidential fund for the OVP under the 2024 budget. It did not say that she was returning the already disbursed P125-million confidential fund.
The newscast turned out to be based on the Nov. 9, 2023 Senate budget hearing on the OVP budget for 2024. During the hearing, Sen. Risa Hontiveros fielded questions on how the P125-million confidential fund of the Vice President was spent. For his part, Sen. Koko Pimentel questioned the OVP’s budget utilization, saying its programs look similar to those of other government agencies.
Sen. Sonny Angara, finance committee chair who sponsored the OVP budget, relayed the Vice President’s manifestation that she was withdrawing the confidential fund item from her budget as it has become a divisive issue.
Earlier on Sept. 26, 2023, ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro, in an interview with Karmina Constantino on ANC’s Dateline Philippines, said it would be better for the OVP to return the confidential fund if it could not explain how the money was spent.
On Nov. 16, 2023, or a week after the Senate budget hearing on the OVP budget, legal experts, including retired Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, former politicians and law students filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to order Duterte, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Commission on Audit to provide them with the report on the expenses and liquidation of the 2022 confidential funds of the OVP.
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