Sara to attend Senate budget hearing

MANILA, Philippines — After skipping the hearings of the House of Representatives on the proposed budget for 2025 of her office, Vice President Sara Duterte said she would attend the Senate’s deliberations.

“I’ve already said before why we no longer will participate in the budget deliberations of OVP at the House of Representatives, because I’ve said only two people decide there – Congressman (Zaldy) Co and Congressman Martin Romualdez,” Duterte said.

Earlier, she accused Co, chairman of the House appropriations committee, and Speaker Romualdez of meddling in the Department of Education (DepEd)’s classroom budget for the past two years – which she said demonstrates their power to “hijack” taxpayers’ money.

Due to Duterte’s failure to defend and justify previous spending of the OVP and DepEd when she was still its secretary, House members are proposing to slash OVP’s proposed P2.037-billion 2025 budget to P733.19 million, down by 65 percent or P1.3 billion.

Duterte said she does not expect any increase to the OVP’s approved budget despite her forthcoming presence at the Senate deliberations, but reiterated how she was willing to work with whatever’s left of their proposed budget for next year.

“With the P700 million, we will see what’s been left and we will work around that budget of the OVP, but definitely, we will continue with whatever budget we have,” she added.

Duterte has decided to skip the House probe into the OVP’s alleged misuse of public funds, saying the proceedings were “unnecessary” due to the “unsubstantiated allegations” levied against her.

In a letter dated Sept. 23, Duterte told the House committee on good government and public accountability, that no representatives of her office would attend the second day of the committee’s probe into the OVP’s budget spending on Wednesday. 

Duterte said the reason was that the inquiry was based on baseless accusations made by Manila Rep. Rolando Valeriano in a privilege speech, where he questioned her office for its alleged inefficient budget use since 2023.

“Such claims can be easily verified through the accomplishment reports submitted by the OVP to support its 2025 budget proposal, and confirmed through