4 OVP employees have sent surrender feelers —Rep. Chua

The four officials who were invited and subpoenaed by a House panel investigating the alleged misuse of Office of the Vice President (OVP) funds have expressed their intention to surrender, the head of the committee said Monday.

“May mga natanggap po tayong feelers kahapon na yung apat po ay baka po sumuko po ngayon, baka po um-attend yung apat,” House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability chairperson Rep. Joel Chua told Unang Balita in an interview.

(We received feelers yesterday that the four OVP officials might surrender now and attend the hearing.)

Chua identified the four OVP officials as Lemeul Ortonio, Gina Acosta, Sunshine Fajarda, and Eduard Fajarda.

GMA News Online has reached out to the OVP for comment regarding the supposed feelers sent by the four, but it has yet to respond as of posting time.

The committee will continue its investigation on the OVP fund on Monday morning.

Lawmakers warned last week that the four will face criminal and administrative charges if they continue defying invitations and subpoenas issued by the House panel.

The committee earlier cited the four in contempt for repeated failure to attend the inquiry on the budget use of the OVP and the Department of Education (DepEd) when it was still headed by Vice President Sara Duterte.

The Commission on Audit (COA) had issued a Notice of Disallowance on P73 million out of the P125 million confidential funds the OVP, under Duterte, disbursed in 11 days.

COA Assistant Commissioner Alexander Juliano explained during the budget deliberations of the OVP’s P2 billion budget proposal for 2025 that the Notice of Disallowance meant that the expenditure was “either irregular, unnecessary, excessive, extravagant, or unconscionable.”

Duterte, who has refused to attend the hearing, earlier said she did not misuse OVP funds and that the congressional inquiry is just a test case for her impeachment.

She has since accused the Marcos administration of using her as a "punching bag" to hide corruption in the government. —KBK, GMA Integrated News