Vice President Sara Duterte is no longer hopeful that the projects she envisioned for the Office of the Vice President (OVP) would still be possible given the political climate in the country.
Vice President Sara Duterte (Photo from Inday Sara Duterte Facebook page)
In her opening remarks at the OVP budget hearing on Tuesday, Aug. 27, the official lamented that her dream of an OVP permanent office, an OVP charter, and a vice-presidential museum may not come to fruition because of politics.
“Unfortunately, the latter projects may never come to fruition given the political climate surrounding the institution,” she said, noting that the medical and burial assistance programs “have always been continuing projects” though she did not speak of their future.
But while the OVP’s projects echoed her campaign platform of “trabaho, edukasyon at mapayapang pamumuhay (jobs, education, and peaceful living),” she cited that politics play a role in the release of budget to support these programs.
“Corollary to this, is the issue of politics being involved in relation to the national budget and release of financial assistance,” she stated, citing even Senator Imee Marcos who said during the recent Senate budget hearing that financial aid is not only being politicized in the barangay level, but even in the Senate and the OVP.
On Tuesday, Aug. 27, Duterte faced the House committee on appropriations, whose members grilled her about the OVP’s proposed P2.037-billion budget for 2025.
The House of Representatives, in a rare move, deferred the deliberations on the OVP’s proposed budget, which meant it wouldn’t be elevated to the plenary yet.
Instead, the House appropriations committee scheduled another round of deliberations for the OVP on Sept. 10.
This was a stark contrast to how the lower chamber treated Duterte in 2022 and 2023 when they acted swiftly to pass her proposed budget.
In her speech, Duterte said that when she was sworn to her position in 2022, it became her “lawful duty to give aid to any person who reaches out to the OVP seeking relief.”
“I must do justice to every man. And I intend to do so,” the Vice President said.
Since becoming the country’s second-highest official, she led several programs and projects—the establishment of 10 satellite offices, two extension offices, and a disaster operations center; medical and burial assistance; Libreng Sakay; Kalusugan Food Trucks and the Pansarap project; Pagbabago: a Million Learners and Trees Campaign; Magnegosyo Ta ‘Day; and relief operations for individuals during crisis and emergencies.
Duterte’s isolation from the Marcos administration came just two years shy of their landslide victory in the 2022 polls, with many political pundits crediting the Vice President’s massive popularity for President Marcos’ win.
Her resignation from the Cabinet in mid-July was a result of a year of issues and controversies hounding her relationship with the President, specifically the latter’s seemingly go-signal for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate former president Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs.
On Sunday, Duterte addressed for the first time her role in putting Marcos to power, and apologized to members of the embattled Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC) for asking them to vote for the President.
KOJC’s leader Pastor Apollo Quiboloy is facing child sexual abuse and qualified human trafficking charges, and is currently being hunted by the Philippine National Police (PNP) following an arrest warrant.