Lanao del Sur 1st district Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong (left), Vice President Sara Duterte )Facebook)

Lanao del Sur 1st district Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong says he feels "personally insulted" by Vice President Sara Duterte's pronouncement that she plans to attend the Senate’s deliberations on the 2025 General Appropriations Bill (GAB). 

"Personally, to be honest with you...I personally feel insulted," Adiong told reporters just before House of Representatives approved its version of the P6.352-trillion spending plan. 

"If you would ask me personally, I would say she's really selective, and that does not speak highly of an official especially the one occupying the second highest position in the land," said the House assistant majority leader. 

Adiong had been designated as the sponsor--essentially the defender--of the OVP's P2.037-billion budget for next year. 

He waited for three days, from Sept. 23 to 25, for Vice President Duterte to appear during the House plenary debates. She neither showed up nor sent a duly-authorized representative to help in Adiong's defense of the OVP budget. 

This was the first time that an agency head snubbed the budget plenary debates in the lower chamber. 

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But in a press conference on Sept. 25, Vice President Duterte said that she was willing to go to the Senate once it starts its own discussions on the GAB. 

"Dalawa naman talaga ang branch ng ating legislatura (Our legislature really has two branches) and it's just so saddening for an offiicial, especially coming from the OVP, to intimate to us that she's comfortable only to this one branch of the legislature," Adiong said. 

"Hindi po pwedeng selective ka lang dun (You can't be selected with that). If you agree on the premise that they have the right and they have the mandate, you cannot simply disregard the other one," said the "Young Guns" bloc member. 

In a Sept. 11 letter sent to Adiong, Vice President Duterte said that she was leaving the fate of the OVP budget "entirely to the pleasure of the House of Representatives".