House panel slashes OVP budget by P1.29 billion

MANILA, Philippines —  She said she could function with a “zero budget.”

Vice President Sara Duterte didn’t get zero or P1 for the 2025 operations of her office. But the 139 members of the House of Representatives appropriations committee voted unanimously to cut by more than half her proposed funding.

Marikina Second District Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo, senior vice chairperson of the panel, told a news briefing yesterday that the P2-billion budget proposal had been slashed to P733.2 million.

The move was approved two days after Duterte snubbed the budget deliberations of the committee headed by Rep. Zaldy Co of Ako Bicol party-list.

Quimbo assured the Office of the Vice President that despite the P1.293-billion budget cut, jobs in the OVP would be preserved along with its social services, which will be diverted to specific agencies with such mandates, like the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

The funding cuts came from allocations for financial assistance, professional services – which is the budgeting term for consultants – and for utilities, supplies and materials and rentals/leases.

The OVP financial assistance (FA) fund of P947 million will be transferred to the Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situation program of the DSWD and the medical assistance program of the Department of Health (DOH), with the two agencies getting an almost equal share of about P646 million.

Quimbo also pointed out that the OVP was also found to maintain 10 satellite offices and two extension offices.

“We want them to return to the spending level in 2022 when the OVP maintained just one office,” she said.

Quimbo revealed that OVP’s FA fund is the source of money for those seeking burial, medical, transportation and similar aid.

She stressed that the OVP and beneficiaries of those projects could still access the same funds that would be transferred to the DSWD and DOH by communicating their requests to the two departments.

The P1.293-billion budget cut would come from the following OVP items: P200 million for supplies; P92.4 million for personnel services for consultants; P947.4 million for financial assistance; P48.3 million for rent/lease expenses, and P5 million