Sen. Grace Poe Speaks on Senate Finance Panel Adopting House Budget for OVP
GRACE POE – The Senator said that the Office of the Vice President (OVP) snubbed the Senate finance panel’s request to submit documents to clarify the issues regarding their 2025 budget proposal.
For 2025, the office of Vice Pres. Sara Duterte requested for a P2 billion budget. The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) earlier said that the budget proposal does not include confidential funds which Duterte was controversial for.
Duterte is surrounded by accusations over the speedy use of the DepEd confidential funds in 2022. However, the Vice President has snubbed the House hearing regarding her office’s budget use. There was also an inquiry when the Vice President refused to take an oath.
According to a House panel, they may suggest a case against Vice Pres. Duterte over the confidential funds of her office. The repeated absences of the Vice President at the House hearing was followed by the lower chamber’s decision to reduce the budget for the OVP in 2025.
The House made a P1.3 billion budget cut for the office of Vice Pres. Sara Duterte reducing the amount to P733 million. The lower chamber previously explained that it is already inclusive of the allowance intended as allowance with regards to the inflation.
The House of Representatives previously said that the P733 million is final. Recently, the Senate Committee on Finance also talked about the budget for the Office of the Vice President.
Based on a report on GMA News, Senator Grace Poe said that the Senate Finance panel has adopted the P733 million budget appropriation of the House for the office of Vice Pres. Sara Duterte. According to the lawmaker, they have reached out to the OVP but Duterte’s office snubbed the request.
“We reached out several times to the Office of the Vice President requesting them to submit documents to clarify issues regarding their budget but they have not submitted as of today,” Sen. Grace Poe said.
According to Poe, the OVP not submitting the documents that can clarify the budget issues led the Senate finance panel on a decision to retain the General Appropriations Bill or GAB amount pending the submission and review of the documents.
Previously, amid the issues surrounding her budget proposal and the disappointment of the House members for her absences in the hearings, Vice Pres. Sara Duterte said that work in the OVP continues even on a P700 million budget.