Vice President and concurrent Education Secretary Sara Duterte has proposed a P2.292-billion budget for the fiscal year 2023, more than thrice the allocated budget for the Office of the Vice President (OVP) in 2022.
Of the P2,292,673,000 proposed budget, P91.356 million will be allotted for General Administration and Support and P2.201 billion is for Good Governance Program.
Duterte, who also serves as Education chief, has yet to comment on the report as of posting time, but the OVP will need to present its proposed projects and programs during budget deliberations for the 2023 General Appropriations Act (GAA).
This amount is the biggest budget proposal from the OVP since 2017 when the office was under former vice president Leni Robredo, whose biggest budget came in 2021 at P900 million.
Her budget in 2017 was P428.618 million, followed by P543.946 million in 2018, P663.381 million in 2019, P699.883 million in 2020, and finally, P702.035 million in 2022.
Under Duterte, the OVP has been providing medical and burial assistance since assuming office on July 1.
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It also launched its Peak Hours Augmentation Bus Service- Libreng Sakay program, wherein five buses were deployed in Metro Manila, Davao City, Cebu, and Bacolod during peak hours.
Duterte also opened satellite offices in Dagupan, Cebu, Tacloban, Zamboanga, Davao, and Tandag in Surigao del Sur to make the OVP’s services more accessible to the people.
The Vice President also aims to establish an official residence for the country’s second-highest official that she said will benefit future occupants of the post.