House Speaker Martin Romualdez (left), Vice President Sara Duterte (Facebook)

Ranking congressmen from both the majority and minority have debunked Vice President Sara Duterte's claim that the confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) probe in the House of Representatives was hatched by House Speaker Martin Romualdez.

According to the Vice President, Romualdez's motivation for doing so is his supposed plan to run for president.

House Majority Leader Zamboanga City 2nd district Rep. Manuel Jose "Mannix" Dalipe described the lady official's remarks as having "no basis at all".

“The House wanted to protect public funds and acted on the COA (Commission on Audit) report questioning hundreds of millions of pesos in CIF expenses by Madam Sara Duterte as Vice President and as DepEd secretary,” he said.

Dalipe argued that the launch of the congressional inquiry on the alleged CIF misuse by the Office of the Vice President (OVP) was justified.

He noted that the audit commission has disallowed P73 million of the P125 million in CIF spent by the OVP within just 11 days in December 2022. 

COA also flagged more than P160 million of the P325 million disbursed in the first three quarters of 2023.

“Pinababalik ng COA sa kaban kay VP Duterte ‘yung P73 million dahil diumano iligal ang paggastos nito,” he added, as he explained the significance of the disallowance.

(The COA has asked VP Duterte to return to the country’s coffers the P73 million due to alleged illegal spending.)

The allegation on CIF misuse amounting to P125 million was first floated by the Makabayan bloc last year. It has since snowballed into a headline-grabbing investigation by the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability.

'Wala pong ganun'

House Deputy Minority Leader ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro, during the Nov. 20 hearing of the good government panel, said that there was no collusion between Makabayan and Speaker Romualdez.

"Mayroon din kasing statement si Vice President with due respect, na ginamit itong confidential funds at napag-usapan namin with the Speaker. Walang ganun, for the record Mr. Chair," Castro said during her interpellation of OVP Chief-of-staff Zuleika Lopez. 

(With due respect, the Vice President also had a statement that we agreed with Speaker to use this confidential funds issue. For the record Mr. Chair, there's no such thing.)

"Walang kinalaman si Speaker kung bakit namin ineexpose yung confidential funds. Baka naman insipin nanaman ng Vice President na ipinagtatanggol natin ang Speaker. Wala pong ganun," Castro said.

(The Speaker had nothing to do with why we exposed the confidential funds issue. The Vice President might think that we're defending the Speaker again. There's more such thing.)

"Itong confidential funds kaya daw inexpose ni France o kaya inexpose ng Makabayan dahil mayroon kaming kuntsabahan ng Speaker or leadership. Walang ganun no," she stressed.

(They said this confidential funds issue was exposed by France or Makabayan because were colluding with the Speaker or the leadership. There's no such thing.)

Castro said the militant bloc exposed the issue because they saw COA's notice of disallowance and they believe all CIFs must be scrapped.

"Dito sa Kongreso, magkakaiba man kami ng posisyon dito sa Kongreso, we respect each other's political belief. Gusto ko lang din linawin yung point na yun.

(Although we may have different positions here in Congress, we respect each other's political belief. I just want to point that out.)