Vice President Sara Duterte (Dexter Barro II)

Vice President Sara Duterte--seemingly intent on having her way with the House Committee on Appropriations--participated in one of the most tense and bizarre budget hearings in recent memory on Tuesday, Aug. 27. 

This, after the second highest-ranked official of the land repeatedly refused to directly answer questions from Makabayan solons pertaining to the Office of the Vice President's (OVP) usage of P125-M worth of confidential funds in a span of 11 days, specifically in December 2022. 

Instead, the Vice President kept insisting that the topic of the Tuesday hearing was the proposed P2.037-billion budget of the OVP for 2025. 

"The topic in the invitation (to the hearing) is the 2025 budget proposal. There is no confidential funds in the 2025 budget proposal," said Vice President Duterte, who was visibly irked by the line of questioning from the solons. 

Asking the questions about the confidential find usage were ACT-CIS Party-list Rep. France Castro, and Gabriela Party-list Rep. Arlene Brosas. 

Right at the start of the interpellation, or question and answer portion of the budget hearing, the Vice President said that she would repeatedly say "I will forego the defense of the OVP 2025 budget proposal, and we leave it to the House of Representatives to decide on the proposal" as a response to the congressmen. 

In a rather unusual occurrence,.the Vice President also "requested" from presiding officer Marikina City 2nd district Rep. Stella Quimbo to implement several changes on how a budget hearing should be carried out. 

This included asking for a different presiding officer and limiting her interpellators to solons with actual questions to ask. 

Vice President Sara Duterte (Facebook)

The Vice President clarified in the hearing that she wasn't avoiding the solons' questions.

"Just because you don't like my answer, just because you don't like my demeanor, hindi ibig sabihin na hindi ako sumasagot (it doesn't mean that I'm not answering)," she said.

'Ugaling pusit'

Frustrated by Vice President Duterte's tact, Castro compared the latter to a "pusit" or a squid--an animal that excretes ink as a defensive move and to escape predators. 

"So wag naman mag-ugaling pusit ang OVP (I hope the OVP doesn't adopt squid tactics)," she said. 

The Vice President shot back and asked out loud why a person convicted of child abuse was allowed to sit in panel, obviously referring to Castro, who was recently convicted to child abuse by a Tagum City court. 

Exasperated, but managing to keep the hearing from completely going off the rails, was Quimbo, the senior vice chairperson of the committee. 

At one point, she gently reminded the Vice President: "Madam Vice President, with due respect, you have, you are not allowed to do that Madam Vice President. You are not allowed to introduce any motion, you are a resource person." 

"I did not move ma’am, I requested as your resource person, I requested," the Davao City-based office said, to which Quimbo replied: "Your request was denied. So please answer the question the issue on confidential funds, [it] falls squarely in our discussion of your 2025 budget."
 

'We have to maintain respect'

House Assistant Majority Leader Lanao del Sur 1st district Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong, the designated plenary sponsor of the OVP, couldn't help but express his "sadness" over the way that the budget hearing progressed. 

"There have been so many words that are not supposed to be said in this committee deliberations. I hope for decorum, proper decorum. I hope for respect. We don't need to like each other, but we have to maintain respect one another," he said.

Tuesday’s proceedings was a far cry from the House budget deliberations of the OVP under Vice President Duterte for the 2023 and 2024 national budgets. In both occasions, the official was granted "parliamentary courtesy" resulting to the early termination of the budget hearings in those years. 

Vice President Duterte began her presentation of the OVP's 2025 budget at 1:59 p.m. The House members' interpellation was still ongoing as of this posting.

Contempt citation?

She was the lone resource person for the OVP who attended the hearing.

She said she purposely decided to "come alone and answer the questions alone", and claimed that the solons had a "script" to pin her down on the confidential funds issue. 

"Kung i-contempt man ninyo ako, ako lang yung papasok sa detention center at hindi na masali yung ibang tao dito," the Vice President told the panel. 

(So that in case you cite me for contempt, it is only I that I would be taken to the detention center, and not the others.) 

Quimbo would later confirm that, in the long history of the House, not one resource person has been cited for contempt during a budget hearing.