Vice Pres. Sara Duterte Requests House Committee To End Investigation on OVP Fund Use
SARA DUTERTE – The Vice president moved to stop the House investigation on her office’s fund use tagging it as a “political attack”.
One of the most controversial budget proposal and fund spending is that of the Office of the Vice President or the OVP. Vice Pres. Duterte had heated exchange of remarks with the people in the Senate and the House of Representatives during the budget deliberations.
According to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), the Office of Vice Pres. Duterte is requesting for a P2 billion budget for 2025. The budget department said that the budget proposal does not include confidential funds.
However, Senator Risa Hontiveros mentioned the P10 million budget alloted for the distribution of the book authored by Vice Pres. Sara Duterte. The Senator and the Vice President had a heated argument after the former mentioned the budget for the book and the similarity of the assistance programs of the OVP to those of the other agencies.
Duterte tagged the move of Hontiveros as “politicizing”. She also claimed that some government agencies turn down the referrals from her office so the OVP launched its own assistance programs.
At the deliberation at the House of Representatives, Duterte also had a heated exchange of remarks with Representative France Castro of ACT Teachers Partylist. The deliberation was moved. However, the Vice President was no show at the rescheduled deliberation.
Recently, Vice Pres. Sara Duterte showed up at the probe of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability. However, at the inquiry, the Vice President requested for the termination of the probe.
“I will not allow myself to be subjected to an inquiry based on an empty privilege speech just so you can attack me… I therefore request this committee to terminate this inquiry for clear lack of any proposed legislation,” she said.
Representative Joel Chua, the chairman of the panel, did not heed the request of Duterte. In her opening speech, the Vice President accused the House of conducting a ‘well-funded and coordinated political attack”.
Duterte further accused the privilege speech that prompted the inquiry as “a speech that simply meant to say ‘do not vote for Sara in 208′”. The Vice President stressed that her office did not do anything wrong and there is allegedly no misuse of funds.
Vice Pres. Sara Duterte said that if there are audit findings, her office is ready to address it to the Commission on Audit. She stressed that she will continue to do her job.
“You may try to destroy me… But let it be known that you will find me unbowed. I will continue to serve the people no matter the personal cost,” the Vice President said.
Previously, the Office of Vice Pres. Duterte said that it has helped more than 2 million people in the past two (2) years.