VP Sara declines defense of 2025 budget proposal

MANILA – Vice President Sara Duterte on Tuesday refused to defend her office's proposed budget for 2025 before the House of Representatives' appropriations committee.

"I would like to forgo the opportunity to defend the budget in a question-and-answer format. I will leave it up to the House to decide on the budget submitted," Duterte said during the House hearing on the 2025 budget of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) amounting to P2.037 billion.

Marikina 2nd District Rep. Stella Quimbo, senior vice chair of the committee, stressed that the interpellation is an important component of the budgetary process of Congress, noting that there were 17 lawmakers on the list of interpellators.

"The General Appropriations Act is arguably the most important piece of legislation every year," Quimbo said.

Duterte refused to answer questions about confidential funds allocated to the OVP in previous years, asserting that she yields the opportunity to defend the budget of her office.

Nonetheless, she addressed the issues that were "germane to the use of public funds" in her opening speech.

On the issue of security personnel detailed to the OVP, Duterte clarified that the number of security personnel is not determined by her office, noting that there were legal issuances made by the Department of National Defense (DND), Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Philippine National Police (PNP) and National Police Commission (Napolcom) for the creation of the AFP-Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group and the PNP Vice Presidential Protection Division.

"We are mere recipients of the security personnel detailed to the office. To date, there are no more PNP personnel with the OVP," she said.

The Vice President's security is now being provided by 337 officers from the AFP following the recall of 75 from the PNP.

She likewise assured full cooperation with the ongoing review by the Commission on Audit (COA) on the use of confidential funds.

"We have received audit actions regarding the confidential funds of the OVP. We have submitted our responses, and we assure our full cooperation with the ongoing audit," Duterte said.

Duterte questioned why issues were raised about the OVP's ability to "efficiently utilize" its funds in December 2022, considering that government agencies were usually criticized for having low utilization budget rates.

Duterte was pertaining to reports that the OVP spent its P125 million worth confidential funds in 11 days in 2022.

"I am, however, bewildered as to the issues being propagated on the fact that we were able to efficiently utilize funds given to the OVP in December 2022, considering that we, in the government, usually disburse millions, if not billions of pesos, in a single day. And what makes it even more perplexing is that government agencies are often criticized for low budget utilization rates. For this proposal, as an example, we were even required to explain the low utilization or disbursement rates and present a catch-up plan for such," she said.

Regarding the children's book "Isang Kaibigan" (A Friend) that she authored, Duterte said the inclusion of her name and image on the About the Author page is a common practice and was not a political move.

"The projected recipients of the book are elementary students and Grade 7 learners. This belies any insinuation of political motives as they will not even be eligible to vote come 2028," she said.

The House appropriations panel approved Zambales 1st District Rep. Jefferson Khonghun's motion to defer the deliberations on the OVP budget.

The next hearing is scheduled on Sept. 10.

The committee deliberated on the OVP's proposed budget for approximately five hours, which was a significant departure from the swift approval within a matter of minutes in previous years due to parliamentary courtesy. (PNA)