House leader slams VP Sara for skipping OVP budget deliberations

A leader of the House of Representatives on Tuesday slammed Vice President Sara Duterte for skipping plenary debates for her office's proposed P2-billion budget for 2025.

"Kung hindi na po siya interesado sa kanya pong duties and functions as the vice president, we can ask the vice president to step down," House Assistant Majority Leader Jil Bongalon said in a press conference. 

(If she is not interested in fulfilling her duties and functions as the vice president, then we can ask her to step down.)

Bongalon, of Ako Bicol party-list, made the response after not a single representative from the Office of Vice President showed up on Monday's plenary debates on the proposed OVP budget for next year.

Lanao del Sur Representative Zia Adiong, the designated sponsor of the proposed OVP budget, waited until 3 a.m. on Tuesday the next day to no avail.

House Deputy Speaker Jayjay Suarez of Quezon, for his part, said Duterte's absences in the budget hearings ran contrary to her mandate. 

"This is a matter of position that she has been elected to and she needs to hold dear to her heart, especially the responsibilities that come with it. Some of those responsibilities may be difficult, but those are responsibilities that have to be done," he said. 

"One of those responsibilities is coming to Congress, standing for your agency, and supporting your budget," Suarez added.

Meanwhile, the OVP, in a statement on Tuesday, denied it made congressmen wait, citing Duterte’s September 11 letter to Adiong telling him that "the OVP has duly submitted all the required documents to the Committee pertaining to its budget request for the upcoming year. Furthermore, a comprehensive overview of our proposals was presented during my presentation on August 27 2024."

"In consideration of the foregoing, the OVP leaves the deliberation of our budget proposal in the plenary entirely to the pleasure of the House of Representatives," Duterte said in the letter.

The OVP said Adiong's office received the letter on September 16, 2024.

Duterte earlier accused House members of using the budget hearing for her office for politicking, adding the lawmakers are just making "a case for impeachment."

"Sa totoo lang, hindi naman ang budget ang puntirya ninyo dahil napakadali naman magtanggal ng budget. What you are trying to do is make a case for impeachment," she said in a House hearing last week.

(In fact, you are not after the budget here because you can easily take that away.)

The House Committee of Appropriations has already recommended a P733-million budget for the OVP for 2025, a P1.29-billion reduction from OVP's initial proposal of P2 billion.

The reduction came after Duterte refused to answer the lawmakers’ questions on her office’s budget use, including the P73 million worth of confidential funds that issued Notice of Disallowance by the Commission on Audit due to lack of supporting documents proving its legal use. https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/918366/vp-sara-confronted-with-p73-m-confi-fund-disallowance-won-t-answer-house-members/story/

Asked if the House appropriations panel's recommendation of the P1.29-billion budget cut for the Office of the Vice President is justified given Duterte's repeated snubs, Suarez said, "It wouldn't be prudent to answer that question."

"Let's give them a little bit more time. We have the whole day today and the whole day on Wednesday so they can explain. We are not closing the doors on the OVP yet," Suarez said.

"We can't answer the question on whether [the cut] is justified or not now because we haven't even tackled it on the floor. The reason why we can't tackle it on the floor is because she's absent. She's not here," he added.

The reduction is already adopted under House Bill 10800 or the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) currently being deliberated before the House plenary. 

The budget bill, however, will still be subjected to approval of over 300 House members  on third and final reading, expectedly on Wednesday night. —KBK, GMA Integrated News