Sara Duterte says no confidential fund proposed for OVP’s 2025 budget

MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Sara Duterte said that the Office of the Vice President (OVP) did not request confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) from the 2025 national budget.

The vice president, who just quit her post as the Education secretary this month, said this in an interview with reporters at an event in Cebu City on Saturday.

“For the Office of the Vice President, no, wala kaming proposal ng confidential funds for next year,” Duterte said in an interview with reporters.

(For the Office of the Vice President, no, we do not have a proposal for confidential funds for next year.)

It can be recalled that last year the House of Representatives (HoR) reallocated the CIF of the OVP and the Department of Education, which Duterte previously led.

The HoR reallocated the CIF to the agencies tasked to protect the West Philippine Sea.

A month later, the OVP retracted its appeal to receive P650 million in confidential funds from the 2024 national budget.

This reallocation was made amid the controversy concerning the OVP’s CIF after the Office of the President transferred P125 million to the OVP in 2022, which the Commission on Audit noted was spent in just 11 days.

This has been questioned by two groups in separate petitions in November 2023 before the Supreme Court (SC).

The first petitioners assailed the constitutionality of the P125 million transfer of the Office of the President’s contingency fund to the OVP’s CIF in 2022.

The other petition asked the SC to nullify Executive Order (EO) No. 2 and the Commission on Audit Joint Circular 2015-01, which allows the use, transfer and disbursement of the CIF.

Both petitioners also asked the SC to compel the OVP to return the disputed funds to the national treasury.

In response to the petitions, Duterte, through former Solicitor General Estelito Mendoza, said that the petitions do not present an actual case or controversy nor assert a legally enforceable right. — Ian Laqui