COA: Davao City tops CF spending during Sara term

MANILA, Philippines — Davao City appears to be the biggest spender of confidential funds among the country’s cities and municipalities between 2016 and 2022 when it was still under mayor Sara Duterte, who is now the Vice President, Commission on Audit (COA) records showed.

A review of COA’s annual audit reports (AARs) on Davao City showed a total of P2.697 billion in confidential expenses from 2016 to 2022, way higher than the CF spending of other larger and wealthier local government units (LGUs) such as Cebu City, Quezon City, Manila and Makati City during the same period.

The COA report showed that Davao City’s confidential expenses more than doubled after Duterte assumed the mayoralty post from her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte.

Davao City’s confidential expenses soared to P293 million in 2017 during the first full term of the younger Duterte as mayor, an increase of 103.5 percent from P144 million in 2016.

Duterte officially assumed office as Davao City mayor on June 30, 2016. The city’s confidential expenses ballooned further to P420 million in 2018, then to P460 million yearly from 2019 to 2022.

Her brother Sebastian succeeded her as Davao City mayor after the May 9, 2022 elections, when she won as vice president.

A review of the COA report on Cebu City, considered the wealthiest city in the Visayas region, showed that it only incurred a total of P13.3 million in CF expenses in the past seven years.

Records showed that Cebu City had no CF spending in 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020. It incurred P504,834.15 in confidential expenses in 2017, P5.42 million in 2021 and P7.38 million as “payment for confidential, intelligence and extraordinary expenses” in 2022.

Quezon City, hailed as the country’s richest city since 2020, had a total of P435 million in CF expenses in the past seven years.

The audit records showed that Quezon City had zero CF expenses in 2016 and 2017, P80 million in 2018 and in 2019, P100 million in 2020 and 2021 and P75 million in 2022.

Makati City, the second richest city in the country, had a total of P1.249 billion in CF expenses for the same comparative years.

From zero confidential expenses in 2016, Makati City incurred P186.666