Vice President Sara Duterte (Noel Pabalate/ MANILA BULLETIN)

After giving the Office of the Vice President (OVP) three chances to appear before the plenary, the House of Representatives tackled the OVP’s proposed budget for 2025 on the final day of budget deliberations.

Lanao del Sur 1st district Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong, the designated sponsor of the OVP, was left to defend the office’s budget without Vice President Sara Duterte or even an authorized representative.

“Mr. Speaker, as you can see, the agency has not sent anybody, any representative for this sponsor to be able to answer queries from the floor and to clarify any concerns that our members would like to clarify with,” said Adiong.

Instead of appearing to help defend her office’s budget, the OVP opted to send a letter to Adiong reiterating that it already sent all necessary documents related to the budget.

Duterte earlier said that she was leaving the budget proposal of the OVP to the wisdom of the House.

Given that there was no one present from the OVP, some minority lawmakers chose to manifest their sentiments about the proposed budget instead.

ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro, in particular, even proposed to slash the OVP budget to as low as P529 million.

After about 40 minutes of deliberations, the lower chamber finally terminated the plenary debate on the OVP’s proposed 2025 budget worth P2.037 billion at 5:17 pm. 

The budget will still undergo a period of amendments later Wednesday night until the House plenary approves a final amount.

The Committee on Appropriations had unanimously recommended to reduce the OVP budget to P733 million, and to realign the funds to social service programs.