Mishandled

People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.Vice President Sara Duterte could be realizing this by now... or maybe not. Her father has said she is stubborn as a mule. She’s either determined to make her point, or, if her critics in the education department are correct, she’s simply a slow learner.

Last week, the VP disclosed that the “mishandling” of the budget was among the reasons for her resignation from the Cabinet.

With the congressional pork barrel zombie finding new life in “unprogrammed appropriations” and now growing exponentially with each budget season, and Ralph Recto impounding our PhilHealth funds and diverting these to his former colleagues’ pork trough, people will actually agree with VP Sara.

This is a valid cause that can be championed by the “new opposition” – as the VP and her supporters are now presenting themselves.

But because people are seeing that when it comes to the VP’s beefs, it’s all about her and not the nation, the budget issue that immediately came to mind when she bemoaned the “mishandling” was the funding for the Office of the Vice President plus the Department of Education, which she headed until July 19.

More precisely, it’s the loss of funding. The Veep’s broadside against an unnamed tambaloslos cost her P650 million in confidential funds – P500 million for the OVP, and P150 million for the DepEd.

In her clan’s fiefdom, her two brothers are also lambasting the considerable cuts in the revenue allotments for Davao City, including funding for flood control. So how did the clan utilize the inordinately huge amounts allocated to the city when the patriarch was president?

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The VP’s tiff with those who hold the power of the purse – who were insulted by her remark about the mishandled national budget – could mean further cuts in the OVP budget from 2025 until the end of her term in 2028.

At the very least, it could reveal how she spent P125 million in confidential and intelligence funds within just 11 days in the gift-giving month of December 2022, and another P125 million in CIF for the OVP from Feb. 6 to March 29 last year, with P125 million more from April 25 to June 30.

Former lawmaker and Bayan chair