Vice President Sara Duterte doesn’t expect the House quad committee to be fair to her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, who appeared before the panel for the first time on Wednesday, Nov. 13.
Vice President Sara Duterte speaks to the media during a press conference held at the Senate office in Pasay City on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (OVP screenshot)
In an interview on the sidelines of the Senate plenary deliberations on the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) 2025 budget, the official said rules of fairness don’t exist in the House hearing that looks into her father’s bloody war on drugs.
“Of course not! No. I do not expect fairness,” she claimed.
The lack of fairness in the House hearing, she explained, was the reason she refused to take an oath when she first appeared before the House good government committee that had been investigating the OVP’s allegedly misused public funds.
“Katulad na lang din ng experience namin sa (Like our experience at the) House of Representatives. They use the rules according to their pleasure,” Duterte said, adding that the House applies the rules even if they are already unconstitutional.
“Kahit wala sa rules ay nag-a-ano pa rin, gumagawa sila ng (Even if there are no rules, they still, they make) rules as they go along, as they do their hearings,” the official stressed.
Duterte argued that as an invited resource person, she was allowed by the rules not to take an oath but that privilege was not accessible to “ordinary employees” who are being “scared, maligned.”
“Wala ng rules doon kung makikita ninyo. Wala ng rules doon sa House of Representatives (There are no more rules there if you will see. There are no rules at the House of Representatives),” she stressed.
The Vice President described the quad-comm hearing as “clearly a political persecution.”
She cited as an example how the OVP’s budget was used against her despite its 2025 proposal being included in the National Expenditure Program (NEP).
The lower chamber, she pointed out, harassed the OVP and nitpicked its confidential funds allocation in the past year and not the projects and programs it proposed for 2025.
Duterte reiterated that while she can take the harassment because she’s a politician, a lot of ordinary employees at the OVP and those around their family are being affected.
Meanwhile, the Vice President assured that she thinks her father will be okay as he faced the House quad-comm.
“Do I worry about the former president? I don’t think na pupunta siya dyan kung sa tingin niya hindi niya kaya, or mahina siya (he will go there if he wasn’t sure he can or he’s weak), health wise, so he'll be okay,” she said.
But the official also claimed that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is after something as it investigates the former president.
“Bakit? Well, one would think siguro kapag hinahabol ka, meron sila gusto na mawala sayo (Why? Well, one would think that maybe if you’re being hunted, they want you to lose something),” Duterte added.