‘OVP tried to block release of audit report to House’
A MEMBER of the House of Representatives yesterday bared the Office of the Vice President (OVP) tried, but failed, to prevent the Commission on Audit (COA) from submitting to Congress the audit report on her office’s use of confidential funds in 2022.
Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro said that in a letter dated August 21, or just six days before the House Committee on Appropriations was scheduled to hear the OVP’s budget proposal for 2025, Vice President Sara Duterte’s chief of staff, Zuleika Lopez, advised COA against complying with the panel’s subpoena duces tecum for the Notice of Disallowance (ND) and audits of the OVP and Department of Education’s (DepEd) confidential funds for 2022 and 2023.
Luistro said the OVP argued that releasing the audit reports would violate the “constitutional principle of separation of powers” and infringe on the OVP’s “right to due process.”
“The subject subpoena may not be validly enforced due to the nature of confidential funds,” Luistro quoted the OVP as telling the COA in the letter.
The COA report ordered the Vice President to return P73 million out of her P125 million in confidential funds that were spent in just 11 days in December 2022.
COA issued the ND following the OVP’s “non-submission of documents evidencing the success of information-gathering and/or surveillance activities to support acknowledgment receipts for payments of rewards in cash, various goods and medicines” that totaled to P69.7 million.
The audit agency said the amount is comprised of P10 million for reward payments, P34.8 million for payments of rewards through various goods, and P24.9 million for the payment of rewards through medicines.
The rest of the P73.2 million, worth P3.5 million, covered payments for tables, chairs, desktop computers and printers “without specifying that they were intended for the confidential operations/activities undertaken by the OVP,” which COA said is non-compliant with the requirements.
Tension rose during the August 27 House hearing on the OVP’s 2025 budget request after Duterte stonewalled questions on the COA’s disallowance of the OVP’s confidential funds, saying it is up to the House to decide on her office’s budget
