Statement of House Following VP Sara Duterte’s Remarks over Budget Scrutiny
The House of Representatives hopes that Vice President Sara Duterte will recognize their role in the process for allotting budget to government officers.
Vice Pres. Duterte is surrounded by issues and questions over the Confidential Funds use of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education when she was the education secretary. The lower chamber has previously conducted several hearings over the issues.
The lawmakers in the House of Representatives remain in doubt how the P125 million Confidential Funds of the OVP was spent in just 11 days. Last February 5, the lower chamber impeached Vice Pres. Sara Duterte.
However, the Senate impeachment court returned the Articles of Impeachment against Duterte to the House which Senate Pres. Chiz Escudero does not equate to the dismissal of the impeachment case. The Vice President recently returned from Malaysia and the OVP held the Pasidungog wherein she talked about the fund that her office will request in 2026.
In 2025, the Office of the Vice President was given P700 million — which came with a huge cut compared to the P2 billion budget sought by Duterte’s office. For 2026, the Vice President said her office will ask for P733 million.
When asked why the Office of the Vice President will not ask for a bigger budget, Vice Pres. Sara Duterte claimed that she is not an ally of the Marcos administration so she does not expect that the request for a bigger budget will be accommodated. According to her, the slight difference between the 2025 budget of the OVP and the budget that they intend to ask for 2026 is an allowance for the inflation.
“Hindi naman kami ka-alyado ng administrasyon. At nakita na natin ‘yun noong nakaraang taon, siyempre kung hindi ka sumusunod, hindi ka ka-alyado, hindi ka mabibigyan ng pondo,” she said.
Vice Pres. Sara Duterte also claimed that she does not want the staff of the OVP being allegedly humiliated during budget scrutiny in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Recently, the spokesperson of the House of Representatives asserted the chamber’s role in the budget scrutiny and process.
Atty. Princess Abante, the spokesperson of the House of Representatives, expressed the chamber’s hope that Vice Pres. Sara Duterte will recognize its responsibility in scrutinizing how the public funds are used. Based on a report on PhilStar, Abante stressed that the House also hopes that Duterte will recognize the role of the chamber in checking how an office will use the fund being asked.
“We hope that she will also recognize that part of the House’s responsibility is to scrutinize how funds allotted to the OVP are being used and they have to justify the budget that they will ask,” she said.
Based on the report, the House of Representatives Spox also seemingly reacted to the remarks of Vice Pres. Sara Duterte that she does not want the staff of the OVP being embarrassed. Abante stressed that the chamber is not public shaming anyone.
“The House of Representatives is not embarrassing anyone in the budget process… No public shaming here. What’s important is to give the proper answer based on documents they have,” the House spox said.
Amid the issues, Malacañang recently slammed a comparison between Pres. Bongbong Marcos and Vice Pres. Sara Duterte over the issue of impeachment complaints.