Manila, Philippines — Among the allegations in the impeachment complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte is about the alleged misuse of confidential and intelligence funds of the Office of the Vice President and of the Department of Education.
With this reason, the House Justice Committee summoned COA rgarding the matter, and was represented by Gloria Camora of the COA’s Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office.
During the hearing, she confirmed the obligation of Duterte and other OVP officials to return P73,287,000 of confidential expenses disallowed by the commission.
Camora noted that this follows the denial of the petition for review of the notice of disallowance for the said expenses—petition filed by Duterte, OVP Special Disbursing Officer Gina Acosta, and OVP Chief Accountant Julieta Villadelray.
These are the amount from the confidential expenses of OVP from December 21-21, 2022.
It can be recalled that last year, COA issued a notice of disallowance over the P73 million OVP spending from the overall P125 million confidential funds.
COA noted that P69.7 million of the disallowed amount is due to the nin-submission of documents related to the surveillance activities.
The remaining P3.5 million is disallowed after payments of table, chairs, desktop computers, and printers, without it being stated as confidential operations expenses.
COA clarified however that the OVP may still appeal before the Supreme Court regarding the returning obligation.
The House Justice Committee on the other hand ordered the COA to submit an official copy of the denied petitions and documents related to the notice of disallowance.—Mia Layaguin, Eurotv News