VICE President (VP) Sara Duterte has spent the night at her brother’s office at the House of Representatives in Quezon City.
In a radio interview on Friday, November 22, 2024, House of Representatives Secretary General Reginald Velasco said that Duterte arrived at the building around 7:40 p.m. to visit her chief of staff, Undersecretary Zuleika Lopez, who had been detained after being cited in contempt by the House committee on good government and public accountability amid its ongoing investigation into the alleged irregularities in the use of funds from the Office of the Vice President (OVP).
“After 10 p.m., when they (Duterte and Lopez) were informed that the visiting hours were over, the VP decided to go to the office of the Congressman from Davao, Congressman Pulong Duterte,” Velasco said.
“And from then on, she stayed there sa office ni Congressman Duterte. Until now nando’n siya,” he added.
Velasco said they are in constant coordination with Duterte’s security personnel to know her plans.
Earlier in the day, in an interview with reporters in Butuan City, Duterte said she pitied her staff, who were being dragged into the issue, which she believed was being done to pin her down.
“Naaawa ako dahil, as I said, politiko ako at iyang mga politiko, sisirain talaga nila ang iyong pangalan because there’s a race. Para makalamang sila sa kalaban, sisirain talaga nila ang kanilang kakumpetensiya sa politika,” Duterte said.
(I pity them because, as I said, I’m a politician, and these politicians will really ruin your name because there's a race. To get ahead of their opponents, they will truly destroy their political competitors.)
Lopez was cited in contempt during Wednesday’s House proceedings for “undue interference” in relation to a letter, which she signed and sent to the Commission on Audit, asking it not to cooperate with the panel’s subpoena to submit audit reports on the OVP and the Department of Education’s (DepEd) use of confidential funds.
Duterte served as the Secretary of DepEd from 2022 to July 2024.
Lopez admitted to sending the letter to the COA as a “respectful request.”
“For the record, it was just a respectful request to the Commission on Audit,” she said as she sought reconsideration on the panel’s order to cite her in contempt.
“There was no intention to demand from them, or to order, or to command them to do something that they did not want to do. It was really something that we requested of the Commission on Audit. At the end of the day, it is still the Commission on Audit who will decide best,” she added.
Lopez was ordered detained until November 25, the next inquiry set for the matter.
The committee also cited in contempt OVP assistant chief of staff and chairperson of the Bids and Awards Committee Lawyer Lemuel Ortonio, special disbursing oOfficer Gina Acosta, former DepEd special disbursing officer (now with OVP) Edward Fajarda, and former assistant secretary of DepEd Sunshine Charry Fajarda for failing to attend the proceedings.
According to the committee secretary, the said officials have yet to receive the order as they are on official travel.
Duterte has repeatedly denied the accusations of budget misuse by her office, particularly regarding the P125 million in confidential funds allocated to the OVP, which was spent in just 11 days in 2022.
She maintained that the lower chamber was conducting the probe to build up an impeachment case against her.
During the probe, it was noted that of the OVP’s P125 million confidential fund in 2022, P16 million was spent as payment for safe houses.
The panel is scrutinizing the acknowledgment receipts submitted by the OVP and DepEd to the COA to justify its spending.
It noted irregularities, particularly on the dates and signatories on the liquidation documents.
According to COA, the OVP and DepEd submitted 787 acknowledgement receipts with unnamed signatories while 302 have unreadable names of signatories in 2023.
COA auditor Gloria Camora said many acknowledgment receipts were dated December 2023 but there was no particular date indicated.
The committee has offered a P1 million reward to anyone who can provide information about a certain Mary Grace Piattos who signed most of the acknowledgment receipts for the confidential funds of the OVP and Deped.
Duterte refused to comment on the matter, as she has yet to see such a document signed by Piattos.
“Because basically, lahat ng mga documents, hindi siya dumadaan sa akin. Dumidiretso siya sa SDO (special disbursing officer) and sina-submit siya sa…office ng COA na gumagawa ng audit ng confidential funds," Duterte said.
(Because basically, all the documents do not pass through me. They go directly to the SDO and are submitted to the COA office that conducts the audit of confidential funds.)
On Thursday, November 21, House Speaker Martin Romualdez urged Duterte to face the panel and explain how her office uses public funds.
“She should show up, take the oath, speak, and explain. Because even among her subordinates, it appears that only one [person] knows how the funds were spent,” Romualdez said. (TPM/SunStar Philippines)