House Speaker Martin Romualdez Speaks on Vice Pres. Sara Duterte
MARTIN ROMUALDEZ – The House Speaker expressed his belief that only Vice President Sara Duterte knows how the funds of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) were used.
The issues surrounding the utilization of the funds of the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education during Duterte’s term have yet to be clarified. For several hearings now, the Vice President has refused to appear at Batasang Pambansa for the inquiry.
Vice Pres. Sara Duterte recently declined another hearing on her office’s budget use saying that she already attended the inquiry before and she was not questioned. She appeared on the first hearing but refused to take an oath.
According to Duterte, her time was wasted as she was only sitting at the inquiry and there were no questions against her so she decided to leave thus, she asked the permission of the panel. The Vice President was allowed to leave early.
During the recent hearing led by the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability regarding the use of the budget of the Office of the Vice President as well as the disbursement of the Confidential Funds during Duterte’s term as the education secretary, only the staff of Vice Pres. Sara Duterte appeared and they shared they same claim.
Office of the Vice President chief of staff Atty. Zuleika Lopez and other ‘OVP officials namely Chief Administrative Officer Kevin Gerome Tenido, Chief Accountant Julieta Villadelrey, Director for Administrative and Finance Services Rosalynne Sanchez, and Budget Division officer-in-charge Edelyn Rabago’ claimed that they had no role in the disbursement of the confidential funds.
Based on a report on GMA News, House Speaker Martin Romualdez believes that it is really Vice Pres. Sara Duterte who should appear at the inquiry, take an oath, and explain how the Confidential Funds of the OVP and the DepEd were used.
“Dapat lang siyang sumipot at mag-oath, mag-salita at mag-eksplika dahil lahat ng mga opisyales niya… siya lang yata may alam kung anong nangyari diyan sa mga pondo eh. Kaya dapat siya ang mag-paliwanag,” House Speaker Martin Romualdez said.
The House Speaker believes that Duterte should be the one to speak up and not just entrust the hearings to her officials. Based on the report, Martin Romualdez made the remarks at the sidelines of the distribution of the government’s relief assistance for the typhoon victims in Albay.
For 2025, the Office of the Vice President requested for a P2 billion budget from the government. However, after Vice Pres. Sara Duterte skipped several hearings for the deliberation of the OVP funds, the House granted her office a P733-million budget. Vice Pres. Sara Duterte claimed that around 200 OVP staff may lose their job due to the budget.