VICE President Sara Duterte’s use of confidential funds when she was mayor of Davao City should also be looked into amid the discovery of more questionable names of supposed recipients of programs of the Office of the Vice president (OVP).
Palace Press Officer Claire Castro made the remark yesterday after House deputy majority leader Paolo Ortega V disclosed more names of recipients of projects funded by the OVP’s confidential funds.
“If you can see, more similar receipts have been discovered, have been examined, and I think at this point in time, we should also look back, how did VP Sara spent her huge confidential funds at the time that she was mayor? She received at least P460 million for four years during her time, so how did she spend for that?” Castro said in an interview with ABS CBN News Channel’s program HeadStart.
Castro said that in one Senate hearing, Duterte revealed that her confidential fund was spent for programs such as “Libreng Sakay,” “Libreng meals,” and “Mag-Negosyo ‘te day.”
“But those projects were not supposed to be the projects wherein confidential funds should be spent. So maybe she is into these kinds of transactions. She, maybe she did not imagine that it will come to this point that all her receipts would be put into question,” Castro said.
Ortega last week said among the listed beneficiaries of OVP programs are “Jay Kamote,” a “Miggy Mango,” and five individuals named “Dodong” — Dodong Alcala, Dodong Bina, Dodong Bunal, Dodong Darong, and Dodong S. Barok. He said these supposed persons “have no birth, marriage, or death records at the Philippine Statistics Authority.”
Ortega has said the names are part of evidence attached to the Articles of Impeachment against Duterte. Other fictitious names he earlier revealed were linked to brands of popular snacks and a cellphone, a popular restaurant.
NOT A DISTRACTION
Castro, meanwhile, dismissed the Vice President’s claim that the arrest of her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, and his transfer to the International Criminal Court (ICC) was just a distraction to the real problems of the country such as corruption.
She acknowledged the country is facing numerous problems, and that one of them is corruption, which she said the government is trying to address.
“One of the problems, corruption, and we can see based on the discoveries of the members of the House of Representatives, we can see fake, allegedly, fake or unsubstantiated receipts coming from the OVP regarding the confidential funds. So, VP Sara is really correct that we should deal with the issues of corruption and we will start with the confidential funds that she spent,” Castro said.
The House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability last year conducted hearings on Duterte’s alleged misuse of a total of P612.5 million in confidential funds of the OVP and the Department of Education which Duterte headed until she resigned in June last year.
The alleged malversation of P612.5 million is among specific acts cited in the Articles of Impeachment which was transmitted to the Senate last month.
Duterte, among others, is accused of questionable disbursements under the OVP worth P254.8 million and linked to 1,322 fictitious beneficiaries who had no birth records, and P43.2 million in alleged ghost transactions involving 405 fake names under the confidential funds of the Department of Education.
