Vice President Sara Duterte turned the table on former Department of Education (DepEd) undersecretary Gloria Mercado after she claimed irregularities in the agency’s bidding process, as well as claiming that she received possible bribes from the vice president herself.

Former DepEd undersecretary Gloria Mercado testifies in the hearing of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability on Sept. 25, 2024. 

Speaking in a press conference on Wednesday, Sept. 25, Duterte described Mercado as nothing more than a “disgruntled former employee” who was “let go because of loss of trust and confidence sa (in the) Office of the [Education] Secretary.”
 

The official said they learned earlier that Mercado went to one of the senators to make allegations against former DepEd officials, including former assistant secretary Reynold Munsayac and now Vice Presidential spokesperson Michael Poa.
 

“Kaya kami nung nagbasa siya ng statement hindi na kami nagulat. Kasi naririnig na namin sa opisina diyan sa Senate ‘yung mga pinagsasabi niya (When she read the statement, we were not surprised. Because we already heard it from a Senate office) after she was let go,” she told reporters.
 

The Vice President recalled the issues that made her decide to let go of Mercado.
 

“Una niyang ginawa nag-solicit siya ng P16 million sa isang kompanya (The first thing she did was solicit P16 million from a company) on paper using my name without any authorization from the Department of Education,” she said, adding that these were documented on paper.
 

Duterte added that in one of her visits to Cebu City, she learned about how the DepEd’s human resource transferred a teacher item from Region 7 to the Central Office for a non-teaching task of becoming Mercado’s executive assistant.
 

“HR pa mismo ang gumawa ng parang injustice sa teachers namin sa field, so on that second point hindi ko na pinalampas (HR itself did injustice to our teachers in the field, so at the second point, I had enough),” she lamented.
 

Duterte, however, shared that she allowed Mercado to retire after she cited her long tenure in the agency.
 

“I think hindi niya lang siguro matanggap na kasalanan niya na bakit siya pinalayas sa Department of Education. Hindi rin nmin matanggap na magso-solicit ka sa isang private company…(I think she cannot accept that it was her fault why she was kicked out of the Department of Education. We also cannot accept that she solicited from a private company),” the official stressed.
 

During the hearing of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability on Wednesday, Sept. 25, Mercado claimed that she was asked to resign after she rejected Munsayac’s suggestion that bidders “should just discuss among themselves” about the procurement for the agency’s computerization program.
 

She also claimed she received nine envelopes with P50,000 each from then DepEd Assistant Secretary Sunshine Fajarda, who told her the envelopes came from Duterte.
 

While she intended to return the envelopes to Duterte during her exit call, this did not happen and she instead donated it to a non-government organization.
 

Mercado presented the nine empty envelopes to the House panel. The envelopes were labeled with HOPE, which stands for Head Of Procuring Entity, the title she held from February 2023 until her retirement.

In a separate statement on Thursday, Sept. 26, Duterte said that Mercado is part of a "political machinery" against her.

The official urged the House lawmakers to stop using a witness like Mercado who has no credibility.

"Sana ay pag-isipan ng Kongreso na ang walang pakundangang pagtatampok ng mga testigo laban sa akin ay maaaring sumira sa buhay at kinabukasan ng mga inosenteng empleyado sa DepEd at kanilang mga pamilya (I hope that Congress will realize that relentlessly using a witness against me could destroy the lives and future of innocent employees at DepEd and their families)," she said.