THE chairperson of the House Committee on Good Government is now looking at two potential grounds to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte after administration lawmakers initially denied that there are moves at the House of Representatives to oust her.
Manila Rep. Joel Chua said the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) use of P16 million confidential funds for safe houses and the P15 million expenditure for a youth summit by the Department of Education (DepEd) when Duterte was the concurrent education secretary could be used as grounds to impeach her if she will not be able to explain how the funds were used.
Chua said that while his panel’s investigation was initially launched “in aid of legislation,” it has since uncovered possible grounds for Duterte’s impeachment, particularly graft and corruption and betrayal of public trust.
“Now those two instances masasabi po natin ay (we can say are) grounds for impeachment because obviously there was betrayal of public trust atsaka ‘yung (and the) anti-graft (law),” he told reporters.
The Vice President has previously said the Chua panel’s investigation was a “fishing expedition” to look for grounds to impeach her following her falling out with President Marcos Jr. and his administration.
Chua maintained that that the hearing, which was the offshoot of a privilege speech made by Manila Rep. Rolando Valeriano, was called “not for the purpose of impeaching her but in aid of legislation.”
“Well, hindi naman ito nag-emanate sa impeachment. Right from the very beginning siya (Duterte) lang naman nagbabanggit. E ako naman po ginagawa ko lamang ang trabaho ko dahil ito ay ni-refer sa aking committee (Well, this didn’t emanate from impeachment. It was only her who keeps on talking about impeachment. I just did my job because it was referred to my committee),” he said.
Chua refused to confirm that the filing of an impeachment complaint against the Vice President is in the offing, although he stressed that the current findings may form a basis for such action if not refuted.
“Kung ganito ang pagbabasehan natin, pwedeng may grounds. But siyempre ayaw po natin mag-conclude pa (If this will be the basis, there could be grounds but of course, we don’t want to conclude),” he said.
CONFIDENTIAL FUNDS
Chua said the Vice President could face impeachment for graft and corruption for her failure to account for the P15 million in DepEd confidential funds allegedly spent for Youth Leadership Summits (YLS) in 2023.
The amount is supposedly intended for informant payments.
The panel has been pressing Duterte to explain why the DepEd falsely claimed to the Commission on Audit (COA) that it spent the P15 million for eight YLS events in 2023 when it was the AFP that actually paid for it.
Four military officers, including Army Col. Manaros Boransing. last week told panel that the Philippine Army and the local government units spent its own funds for the YLS.
Lawmakers have found out that the Duterte-led DepEd, in liquidating the P15 million, made it appear that it funded the YLS events and used the certifications issued by security officers to justify its expenditure.
Duterte was concurrent education secretary from June 30, 2022 to July 19, 2024.
“Pare-parehas po tayong nagtatanong kung saan napunta ‘yung P15 million. May certification, sine-certify pero inamin naman ng Army na hindi sa kanila napunta, walang dinownload. Ngayon ang tanong – saan napunta? (We’re all asking where the P15 million went. There’s a certification but the Army said it didn’t go to them, no fund was downloaded. So, the question is, where did it go?)” Chua said.
Chua said the Vice President could also be liable for betrayal of public trust for the OVP’s alleged overpriced rental payments for safe houses in the last quarter of 2022.
“‘Yung P16 million na rental for safe houses, walang detalye. Hindi po natin alam kung totoo nga pong nagamit sa rentals (The P16 million for the rental of safe houses, has no details. We don’t know if it really went to the rentals),” he said.
The P16 million for the rentals of 34 safehouses in just 11 days during the last quarter of 2022 came from the OVP’s P125 million confidential funds that year.
COA earlier presented the OVP report on its P125 million confidential funds in 2022 before the Chua panel, which also subpoenaed six OVP officials, including Vice President Duterte’s chief-of-staff Zuleika Lopez, for refusing to attend the probe despite having been issued show-cause orders.
Lawmakers, in particular, could not believe the huge amounts that the OVP spent to rent safehouses, noting that one safehouse cost almost P91,000 per day, which is even more expensive than the rates of high-end resorts.
Records show the OVP made payments ranging from P250,000 to P1 million per property owner between Dec. 21 and 31, 2022.
Chua said the spending has acknowledgment receipts that were unsigned, illegible, missing names, or only included signatures, and lacked supporting documents like lease contracts, thus raising questions about the transactions.
“Ito pong ginagawa niya hindi pa ba betrayal of public trust? Pinagkatiwalaan ka ng pondo tapos di ka sumusunod, ‘di ba? (Isn’t what she did betrayal of public trust? She was trusted with public funds but she’s not following the rules, right?” he said.
The 19th Congress only has more than two session months left before the official campaign period for the 2025 midterm elections begin.
