Zuleika Lopez, Vice President Sara Duterte’s chief of staff, attended Wednesday’s congressional hearing but offered no clarity, insisting she does not know how the Office of the Vice President (OVP) spends its confidential funds.
Lopez, who just returned to the country from a personal trip to the United States, told the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability, that her job is only to oversee the institutionalization and implementation of all socioeconomic projects.
“In the Office of the Vice President, although I am undersecretary and the chief of staff, I am purely handling operational concerns. There are areas, for example, that I am not privy to, one of which is the matter of confidential expenses,” she explained to 1-Rider party-list Representative Rodge Gutierrez.
“Although I would wish to answer really, respectfully as regards the matter of confidential expenses, it is something that I have not really been privy to from the very beginning,” she told the panel.
As this developed, Manila Rep. Joel Chua, the panel’s chair, said that only the Vice President’s “inner circle” can provide clarity on the alleged irregular use of OVP’s confidential funds but these key officials who manage these funds remain absent from the proceedings.
“Today, we continue our pursuit of the truth and our attempts to make sense of the way in which hundreds of millions of public funds were used,” he said in his opening remarks.
Chua noted that while some career public officials from the OVP had attended previous hearings under subpoena, their knowledge of the confidential funds was limited.
“At this point, I will only make one observation, first – it seems that the representatives sent by the OVP know only a little about the Confidential Funds. Whether this is because of their status as career officials and not those in the ‘inner circle’ of the Vice-President, we don’t know yet,” Chua said in Filipino.
He singled out two individuals who hold direct responsibility for managing the OVP’s confidential funds: Vice President Sara Duterte, the head of the agency, and Gina F. Acosta, the Special Disbursing Officer (SDO).
Similarly, at the Department of Education (DepEd), the head and SDO are Duterte and Edward D. Fajarda, respectively.
However, these officials have not appeared before the committee despite repeated invitations, Chua lamented.
Meanwhile, the Good Government and Public Accountability panel issued another contempt order against an OVP official for failing to attend its inquiry into the office’s use of its budget.
Ako Bicol party-list Representative Raul Angelo Bongalon moved to cite Lemuel Ortonio in contempt for supposedly being rude toward the investigating panel.
“Number one, he is aware that there will be a committee hearing today… and that the excuse he offered in this letter is not a valid one. And for me, Mr. Chair, this is a continued defiance of a lawful order of this committee and it is a sign of disrespect,” the lawmaker said.
Bongalon also moved for Ortonio to be detained at the Bicutan jail in Taguig for 10 days.
Meanwhile, Chua warned that Ontorio and three other officers of the OVP would soon face criminal charges and possible imprisonment for repeatedly defying invitations and subpoenas issued by the committee.
The panel chair pointed out that the four failed to attend the committee’s inquiry for the sixth time.
Chua’s panel is looking into the alleged misuse of P612.5 million in confidential funds received by the OVP (P500 million) and the DepEd (P112.5 million) in 2022 and 2023 when the Vice President was education secretary.
“They are public officers, and under the law, they have the duty to attend congressional hearings,” he said.
Threatened with criminal charges were Ortonio; Gina Acosta, OVP special disbursing officer; Sunshine Fajarda, former Department of Education (DepEd) assistant secretary; and her husband Edward, former DepEd special disbursing officer.
In the course of Wednesday’s sixth hearing, Chua and members of his committee collectively expressed their frustration over the repeated refusal of the four to attend the committee’s inquiry, with Kabataan Party-list Rep. Raoul Manuel declaring, “Mr. Chair, they are making fools of us already.”
The committee chair pointed out the Supreme Court had declared in one case that attendance in a House or Senate hearing “is mandatory when one is summoned.”
He added that failure to honor a congressional subpoena “is subject to criminal sanctions under Article 150 of the Revised Penal Code.”
Aside from criminal charges, Deputy Speaker and Quezon Rep. David Suarez suggested that the committee look into the possibility of filing administrative cases against the four OVP officers.
Editor’s Note: This is an updated article. Originally posted with the headline “OVP’s Lopez attends House hearing, thanks lawmakers for granting her ‘act of kindness’.”
