Then-Department of Education Secretary and Vice President Sara Duterte presenting her "Isang Kaibigan" book (Duterte's Facebook page)

The Department of Education (DepEd) said through an official on Monday, Sept. 2, that it had nothing to do with the development, printing, or even the reproduction of Vice President Sara Duterte’s controversial book for children titled “Isang Kaibigan (A Friend)”. 

During the agency's budget deliberations before the House Committee on Appropriations, DepEd Undersecretary Gina Gonong told lawmakers that she first learned of the book during the “Araw ng Pagbasa” event in November last year.

“Yung particular book po, nakita lang namin noong launch (That particular book, we only saw it during its launch),” said Gonong.

She noted that Duterte—as the former DepEd secretary—was among the invited reading ambassadors who narrated stories to schoolchildren. 

Gonong says the ambassadors are allowed to choose a book they want to read, with the only rule being that the book must be appropriate to the level of the learners.

“In this Araw ng Pagbasa in this Quezon City school, ang binasa ng VP ay ang kaniyang story (what the VP read was her story),” Gonong said.

1-Rider Party-list Rep. Rodge Gutierrez, during his interpellation, cited Gonong’s statement as something that essentially removes any responsibility from DepEd when it comes to the “Isang Kaibigan” book. 

“As per reports, the illustrators were a certain Janina Simbillo and Joseph Caligner of the Creative Media Unit - Public Affairs Service of the department. Is this erroneous?” asked Gutierrez.

DepEd Secretary Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara clarified that while the two were job order (JO) employees of the agency, there was no clear record of the supposed assignment of illustrating the book.

“There is no payment made to them for whatever they did, so it’s either they made it gratis or free or they were paid on the side, we don’t really know. Because there is no record of official payment to them,” said Angara.

Given that DepEd had no role in “Isang Kaibigan”, Gutierrez said that this meant that the book did not go through the quality assurance and accreditation required by the DepEd.

“That is correct, Madame chair,” Gonong replied.

Vice President Duterte’s “Isang Kaibigan” went under heavy scrutiny recently after it was found that the book was allotted P10 million under the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) proposed 2025 budget.

The 16-page book was tagged by social media users as being “plagiarized”; some netizens said it shares similarities to the American graphic novel, “Owly: Just a Little Blue”.

In a subsequent statement, Vice President Duterte strongly denied these allegations.