Lawmaker stresses irregularities in OVP’s request for confidential funds, cites 2022 letter

MANILA, Philippines — A lawmaker on Tuesday scored the “flawed” manner in which the Office of the Vice President requested additional funds in 2022, this time pointing out specific wordings in the OVP’s letter request to the Department of Budget and Management allegedly proving the adjustment was done through augmentation.

Citing contents of the OVP’s letter to the DBM in August 2022 — which the Office of the President sent to the House during plenary deliberations for its proposed 2024 budget — Rep. Edcel Lagman (Albay, 1st District) said that Vice President Sara Duterte had committed prohibited acts in requesting P403 million additional funds.

The letter also shows Duterte originally requested P250 million in confidential funds — double of what the OVP received in 2022. 

Lagman said that the letter shows the OVP “requested for the release of funds by augmentation and for confidential funds, both of which are prohibited.”

Duterte has repeatedly refused to detail how the OVP acquired P125 million in confidential funds in 2022 even if this was not included in the 2022 General Appropriations Act, resorting instead to name-calling her critics and relying on allies to publicly come to her defense.

From panel deliberations to plenary debates, Makabayan lawmakers have also repeatedly asked for clarity about the nature of the fund transfer. Duterte accused the Makabayan bloc of a “rabid vilification” of the OVP after Rep. France Castro (ACT Teachers) scored Duterte for allowing the House appropriations panel to end the budget hearing of the OVP early out of parliamentary courtesy.

LOOK: A copy of the letter the OVP sent to DBM in August 2022 requesting P250 million in confidential funds as part of a fund request of P403 million. Letter signed by VP Sara Duterte | via @chicristina_ pic.twitter.com/ylGwEbwRU3

— Philstar.com (@PhilstarNews) September 26, 2023

RELATED: OVP budget escapes scrutiny after House panel swiftly ends deliberations  

‘Augmentation’ 

In a letter addressed to DBM Chief Amenah Pangandaman and signed by Duterte, the OVP requested an "augmentation" of financial assistance funds and funds for the special allowances for the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group (VPSPG). 

In total, the OVP was requesting P403 million. Of this, more than half or P250 million was for confidential funds that would go toward its good governance program.

Broken down, the OVP asked for P144 million to cover the amount needed for the medical assistance subsidies given to applicants in the OVP's satellite offices. 

The OVP also requested P8.74 million to provide Special Duty Allowances to the VPSPG.

A copy of the letter was provided by Lagman’s office to reporters.

Lagman said that under a section of Article VI of the Constitution, the transfer of funds is prohibited “except with respect to constitutional officers like the President relative to savings for augmentation of any deficient allocation in their respective offices.”

“Consequently, it is unconstitutional for any transfer of funds from the Office of the President to another office like the Office of the Vice President,” Lagman added.

Lagman also said that any transfer for augmentation “must be from savings of the office concerned.”

“It was admitted that in the president’s contingent fund, the savings in 2022 was only P50 million but the release to the Office of the Vice President was P125 million. In other words, it was not from savings,” the solon said.

Rep. Erwin Tulfo (ACT-CIS), who spoke for the OP as the agency’s budget sponsor during the plenary deliberations, repeatedly denied that the release of funds to the OVP was a form of augmentation or was sourced from savings.

“This is part of the contingent fund. But there is no fund transfer because this is a lump sump released by the DBM,” Tulfo said in a mix of English and Filipino. “It is not savings. It is not an augmentation.”

Lagman also scored Duterte’s request for confidential funds, saying that there was “nothing to be augmented because the Office of the Vice President had a zero appropriation for confidential funds in 2022.”

“Zero appropriation cannot be augmented. The fund transfer or release also derogates the clear intention of the Congress not to appropriate any allocation for said item,” the lawmaker said.

Confidential fund came from ‘contingent fund’ 

Castro asked Tulfo what the fund transfer was if it was not augmentation.

“This is appropriations from the contingent fund,” Tulfo said.

This is the same as what the DBM wrote in its letter to the House approriations panel last week, where Pangandaman said while it is “understandable that the release of funds to the OVP may be perceived as a transfer, the same was not technically so, for such release was funded from Contingent Fund under the FY 2022 GAA and not from the budget of the OP.”

‘Prove absence of transfer’

Lawyer Barry Guttierez, former spokesperson of former Vice President Leni Robredo, Duterte’s predecessor, said that the onus is on the executive branch to prove that there was no transfer of funds as simply claiming the funds were “downloaded” were “not enough.” 

Contingency funds are budgetary allocations intended for emergencies or unanticipated activities.  

“Simply claiming it’s not a transfer is not going to be enough. You have to show the funds did not move from its original house in its contingent fund. That the control did not transfer, in this case, the OVP,” Gutierrez said. 

By definition, Gutierrez said that the OP’s movement of funds from the contingency funds to the OVP’s confidential funds is a “transfer.”

“Even OVP itself when they were asked in the senate by Sen. Hontiveros, they admitted that they were the ones who disbursed the fund,” Gutierrez added.

That Duterte admitted to complying with the reporting requirements for the use of confidential funds “seem to indicate” that the lump sum was not merely downloaded as claimed by the DBM,  he added.