All fury, no answers

If I were to write a news story about Vice President Sara Duterte Carpio's press conference last Friday, October 18, it would be titled: “All fury and intrigues, no answers.” The vice president failed to address the issue of public funds spending by her office and instead went on a lengthy rant.

The Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper, South China Morning Post, described the press conference as “a meandering, two-hour media briefing in which (Duterte-Carpio) set the record straight on why she became the running mate of Marcos Jnr, how she felt about becoming the education secretary instead of defence chief, and why she had decided to speak up.”

The day before the vice president’s press conference, the House of Representatives Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability, headed by Manila 3rd District Rep. Joel Chua, conducted an inquiry into the use of confidential funds by Carpio’s office in 2022 and 2023. The congressional panel found receipts totaling ?16 million, along with 34 acknowledgment receipts, which were allegedly payments for the rental of safehouses in 2022. This includes a ?500,000 payment purportedly made for the rental of a safehouse from December 21 to 31.

Not a single official from the Office of the Vice President (OVP) attended the congressional inquiry, with the OVP merely submitting a position paper to the committee, stating that the congressional hearing had no “legislative objective or outcome.”

I disagree with the OVP's claim that the hearing would have no legislative objective or outcome. Based on the panel’s discovery that the Commission on Audit (COA) has a limited role in monitoring the liquidation of confidential funds, several legislative outcomes or objectives can be pursued as a result of the hearing.

For one, Congress could push for legislation to strengthen COA’s powers, allowing it to go beyond merely accepting receipts and liquidation reports by granting it the authority to conduct deeper audits into how confidential funds are spent. Legislators might also consider reforming the policies governing the allocation and use of confidential and intelligence funds by proposing stricter criteria for their use and limiting which government offices can access such funds.

In any case, the vice president’s press conference the following day could have addressed the issues raised during the congressional inquiry, particularly those that the COA was unable to clarify regarding how the ?16 million was spent. Instead, the media witnessed Carpio’s anger and defensiveness, punctuated by intriguing revelations about her political alliance with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in 2022.

The press conference offered little value to the public. For foreign and local intelligence agencies, it might have provided some insights into the state of mind of the country’s second-highest public official, but they likely already know the country’s political landscape inside out and would have found nothing new.

Odd statements --like threatening to dig up former president Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s grave and throw the dead man’s bones into the West Philippine Sea, or imagining cutting off the sitting president’s head-- make for intriguing sound bites but offer little more than image projection or stirring the hornet’s nest. This is a typical tactic for projecting a populist persona rather than addressing the root issues of governance. It is also classic avoidance of accountability.

We in the media have a responsibility to expose such theatrics for what they are --a deeper reflection of the culture of image projection and sensationalism over substance in Philippine politics and governance.