I still have the President’s trust, Sara says amid impeach rumors

VICE President Sara Duterte believes President Marcos Jr. still trusts her amid her rift with the House of Representatives led by Speaker Martin Romualdez, who denied during the weekend talks of a supposed impeachment against the country’s second highest elected official.

“We’re okay,” the Vice President told reporters in Quezon City when asked how her working relationship with the President is affected by her differences with the House leadership.

“Well, I believe that I still have the trust of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.,” she added.

Last week, Rep. France Castro (PL, ACT) of the militant Makabayan bloc said there are ongoing talks about impeaching the Vice President, but these are “mere discussions of some congressmen and not a serious move.”

Romualdez denied there are moves to impeach the Vice President.

“I’m not aware of anything. Nothing filed, no news of that,” Romualdez told reporters in an interview at the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation in San Francisco, California.

Romualdez, who is part of President Marcos’ delegation for his six-day visit to the United States, said he does know where the impeachment rumors are coming from.

“I don’t know, I don’t know your sources but there’s nothing in the offing, nothing in general,” he said.

The Vice President’s father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, has been at loggerheads with the House leadership over its move to strip her of her requested confidential funds for 2024.

The House has realigned some P1.23 billion in confidential funds from several government agencies to efforts to boost security in the West Philippine Sea (WPS), which prompted the elder Duterte to defend his daughter and say that the chamber has hidden “pork barrel” and that it is the most rotten institution in the country.

Among the confidential funds that were realigned under the House-approved version of the proposed P5.268 trillion General Appropriations Act (GAA) of 2024 were the OVP’s P500 million and the Department of Education’s P150 million requests. VP Duterte is the concurrent education secretary.

The Vice President said the OVP is already “doing our due diligence about this one (impeachment) and we will release