CONFIDENTIAL FUNDS | VP Sara’s office insists P125 million in confidential funds were spent in 19 days

September 27, 2023 , 05:02 PM

By Clarist Zablan

(September 27, 2023) – Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio’s office on Wednesday insisted it spent the P125 million in confidential funds in 19 days, not 11 days as earlier said by state auditors.

“To say that the Office of the Vice President spent the confidential funds in 11 days, the Office submits its stand that it is inaccurate,” Davao de Oro Congresswoman Maria Carmen Zamora said at a plenary session deliberating the OVP budget in the Lower House.

“Immediately after the release of SARO (Special Allotment Release Order), the implementation has already started. But the actual payment as based on the COA (Commission on Audit) report, only started on December 20 up to December 31. Which means the actual implementation is not 11 days, but it is 19 days.”

Congresswoman Zamora was the sponsor of the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) proposed 2024 budget. She explained that Duterte’s office started implementing the programs covered by the confidential funds on December 13, 2022 until the end of the year.

The OVP’s figures were consistent with the earlier estimates made by the opposition lawmakers from the Makabayan Bloc.

Last Monday, Marikina Congresswoman Stella Quimbo, the sponsor of COA’s 2024 budget proposal, said the P125 million OVP confidential funds were spent in only 11 days. This translates to a spending of over P11.3 million per day.

Minority lawmakers have been demanding that Duterte explain why the OVP needed the confidential funds and how her office had spent these funds even when it did not have allocations for confidential funds under the 2022 General Appropriations Act (GAA).

In a letter to Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman dated August 2022, the OVP said it wanted confidential funds for the “safe implementation of the various projects and activities under the Good Governance program and the conduct of official engagements and functional representation in international and domestic events.”

One of the opposition lawmakers, Albay Congressman Edcel Lagman, said the SARO for the 2022 confidential funds confirmed that the funding was sourced from the contingent fund of the Office of the President (OP).

During the Tuesday budget hearing, Lagman said transferring funds from the OP to another office, such as the OVP, is “flawed” and “unconstitutional.”

“The contingent fund cannot be given to an agency as confidential funds when such agency has not been allocated any confidential fund in the 2022 GAA. Otherwise, this would derogate the clear intention of the Congress not to allocate confidential funds to the OVP,” Lagman said in a statement.

(MM | With reports from Marianne Enriquez, News5)

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