Duterte admission of killings only weakens daughter Sara’s stance

Ex-president Rody Duterte’s admission of wanton killings during his Davao City mayoralty dented his daughter VP Sara’s political stature.

The father’s televised self-incrimination not only reassociated Sara with the Davao Death Squad. It also weakened her justifications for P650-million confidential funds as VP and Education Secretary.

In the end, Sara retreated from her feud with Congress. She ignored daddy’s public counsels as well.

Dispute over confidential-intelligence funds (CIF) recently pulled down Sara’s ratings. Congress scrapped for 2024 the no-audit P500-million CIF as VP and P150 million as education chief that she got for 2023.

The elder Duterte advised Sara Oct. 10th to use confidential funds to slay detracting “communists in Congress.” “Patay kayong mga komunista diyan. Prangkahin mo na ‘yan si France,” he blurted on Sonshine Media Network Inc., apparently referring to Sara’s legal left critic Rep. France Castro, of Alliance of Concerned Teachers Party-list.

Duterte admitted using intelligence funds as mayor to hire assassins of communists: “My intelligence funds, I used it to buy. I had all of them killed. That’s why Davao is like that. Your companions, I really had them killed. That’s the truth.”

SMNI took down the video Oct. 12th. But staunch Duterte censurer ex-senator Antonio Trillanes IV circulated it online, then submitted it to the International Criminal Court.

Duterte faces charges before the ICC for extrajudicial killings during part of his term, November 2011-June 2016. A bloody drug war marked his presidency, July 2016-June 2022.

Duterte alternated with Sara as mayor and vice mayor. Councilors granted them confidential, not intelligence funds, differing but complementing.

Main witness at the ICC is retired Senior Police Officer-3 Arthur Lascañas. The self-confessed Davao Death Squad boss detailed some of more than a hundred alleged assassinations of drug suspects and political foes.

Five DDS henchmen corroborated Lascañas’ avowals: militiaman Edgar Matobato, SPO1 Vivencio Jumawan Jr., barangay chief Fulgencio Pavo and aliases Jose Basilio and Crispin Salazar.

City hall paid them huge amounts even when Sara was mayor, 2010-2013, Lascañas alleged. He received at least P68,000 a month by collecting in behalf of ten to 12 ghost employees.

The Commission on Audit in 2012 observed that Mayor Sara’s admin paid P678 million for 11,000 contractual workers without requisite accomplishment reports. COA also reported that Sara as mayor drew confidential fund of:

• P144 million in 2016;

• P294 million, 2017;

• P420 million, 2018;

• P460 million, 2019;

• P460 million, 2020;

• P460 million, 2021;

• P460 million, 2022.

Newly resigned Finance undersecretary and UP economics professor Cielo Magno noted that Sara’s confidential funds were larger than her yearly budgets for education, nutrition, health, labor and employment, housing and community development, social services and welfare, or culture and sports.

That same period, COA noted, president Duterte received confidential, intelligence, extraordinary and miscellaneous funds of:

• P517 million, 2016;

• P2.5 billion, 2017;

• P2.5 billion, 2018;

• P2.5 billion, 2019;

• P4.5 billion, 2020;

• P4.5 billion, 2021;

• P4.5 billion, 2022.

Sara got flak recently from House of Representatives leaders since her requested P650-million confidential fund for 2024 is higher than those of the Coast Guard, Navy and Air Force that defend the West Philippine Sea against Chinese aggression. Hardly funded too are the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, PNP Maritime Command and National Mapping and Resource Information Authority.

Congressmen denounced Sara’s demand of a 450-man brigade-size security from the defense department. As well, her receipt from Malacañang of P221-million extra funds in her first six months as VP, July-December 2022.

Of that amount, P125 million was confidential fund which Sara spent in 11 days in December. That was despite the OVP having no such unaudited fund for 2022 because former VP Leni Robredo didn’t ask for any during budget hearings in late 2021.

Rody Duterte blamed attacks on his daughter on Speaker Martin Romualdez, with whom she supposedly will compete for the presidency in 2028. In a subsequent SMNI telecast he called Congress, where he sat in 1998-2001, as the dirtiest branch of government.

He advised Sara on air to use DepEd’s confidential fund to revive the Reserve Officer Training Corps. But that won’t wash, for two reasons:

• The Senate’s version of ROTC restoration is in the first two years of college. Meaning, it will be under the Commission on Higher Education, not Sara’s DepEd.

• Reviving ROTC in the last two years of high school, as the House version states, will contravene the UN Convention Against Child Soldiers, since military service will be trained at minor ages of 16-17, not 18-above.

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