Zambales 1st district Rep. Jay Khonghun (left), Vice President Sara Duterte (Facebook)

Another member of the House "Young Guns" bloc has noted the alleged "pattern" of fund mismanagement that's traceable to the Office of the Vice President (OVP) under Vice President Sara Duterte. 

This, as Assistant Majority Leader and Zambales 1st district Rep. Jay Khonghun called out the OVP for exhausting P500 million in confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) in just seven months, with the Commission on Audit (COA) tagging nearly half—over P237 million—as questionable. 

These COA findings prompted Khonghun to again call on the Vice President to drop her evasive and diversionary tactics by directly providing a clear explanation to the Filipino people regarding her questionable use of CIF. 

“The P73 million disallowed by COA is just the beginning of a broader pattern of seeming misuse or mismanagement of government funds, as an additional P164 million has been flagged in audit observation memorandums (AOMs)," said the administration congressman.

“We are seeing a disturbing pattern of misuse or mismanagement of government funds. Vice President Duterte needs to explain this to the public—she owes the Filipino people transparency and accountability,” Khonghun stressed. 

The COA flagged a total of P237 million from the OVP’s CIF, with P73.3 million already disallowed and P164 million highlighted in AOMs. 

An AOM is the precursor to the harsher notice of disallowance (ND), which is essentially COA's way of making an agency return the supposedly misused funds. 

The OVP spent its P125 million allocation for the fourth quarter of 2022 in just 11 days, averaging P11.364 million per day. Of this amount, P73.3 million, or 58.6 percent, was issued an ND by the COA. COA then directed the Vice President and other "accountable officials" of the OVP to settle the amount.

Nueva Ecija 1st district Rep. Mikaela Angela Suansing had summarized the COA findings during the committee deliberations on the proposed P2.037-billion budget for the OVP in 2025 last Aug. 27. 

The Vice President, who was present at the hearings that day, merely brushed off Suansing’s presentation and even chided her for "having all the answers". 

The House Committee on Appropriations eventually recommended reducing the OVP’s budget to P733.19 million, with the slashed P1.29 billion proposed to be realigned to programs under the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Department of Health (DOH) to assist indigents. 

Earlier, another "Young Gun" in 1-Rider Party-list Rep. Rodge Gutierrez highlighted the alleged misuse of P375 million worth of CIFs on the part of the OVP in 2023. 

“This repeated pattern opens the door for further audit scrutiny, and it’s only a matter of time before COA issues a formal [ND] for the P375 million 2023 budget,” Gutierrez, a House minority bloc member, said in a chance interview.