SENATE deputy minority leader Risa Hontiveros yesterday said she is not asking for respect from Vice President and concurrent Education secretary Sara Duterte but an accounting on the disbursement of her two office’s proposed confidential funds for 2024.
The OVP and DepEd is asking for P500 million and P150 million, respectively, in confidential funds for next year.
“Hindi ko hinihingi ang respeto mo, VP Sara. Ang hinihingi ko sa iyo, at ng taumbayan, ay accountability. Kaya i-account niyo na lang kung para saan ang hinhingi niyong confidential funds (I am not asking for your respect, VP Sara. What me and the Filipino people are asking for is accountability. Just explain how you will spend the confidential funds you are asking for),” Hontiveros said in a statement.
Duterte has repeatedly rebuffed the calls of militant and opposition lawmakers and other government critics for transparency on her expenditure of her secret funds.
During the Senate hearing on the proposed budgets of the OVP and DepEd, Duterte simply said the confidential funds will allow both agencies to do their mandates well.
She said she would leave it to the discretion of lawmakers if they want to cut the confidential funds, adding she can continue to function without the secret funds.
Aside from stonewalling questions on her proposed 2024 confidential funds, Duterte has likewise refused to make public how the OVP spent P125 million in secret funds during the last 19 days of December 2022 which were transferred from the contingent fund of the Office of the President.
Hontiveros, Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel III, former Senate president Franklin Drilon and militant lawmakers have said that the expenditure and transfer were illegal because there was no line item for confidential funds in the 2022 budget of the OVP.
Durerte became vice president on July 1, 2022 after winning the 2022 national elections.
Before her, former Vice President Leni Robredo did not request for confidential funds for the OVP during her six years in office.
In skipping queries related to the 2022 secret funds spending, Duterte said that its disbursement complied with the guidelines laid down by the government for the use of confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs) but refused to give a detailed accounting.
A verbal tussle has erupted between Duterte, on one side, and Hontiveros and militant lawmakers from the House of Representatives, on the other side, over the OVP and DepEd confidential fund issue.
On Wednesday, Duterte said she has singled out Hontiveros and ACT Teachers party-list Rep. France Castro in her tirades because she “does not respect” the two lady legislators.
But Hontiveros said she does not care if Duterte does not respect her.
“Kung hindi mo kayang i-respeto ang mga katrabaho mo, irespeto mo man lang sana ang paggasta ng pera ng bayan. Higit isang linggo na simula nang nag-hearing tungkol sa confidential funds pero mas marami ka pang patutsada kaysa sa paliwanag (If you cannot respect your co-workers [in government], you must at least show respect to public funds.
It has been more than one week when we conducted a hearing on these confidential funds but all you have done is to hit at your critics instead of explaining how you spent them),” she stressed.
