Vice President Sara Duterte (Duterte's Facebook page)

Members of the “Young Guns” bloc of the House of Representatives are pushing Vice President Sara Duterte to address the issues that plagued the feeding program of the Department of Education (DepEd) during her tenure as the agency's secretary.

Zambales 1st district Rep. Jay Khonghun and La Union 1st district Rep. Paolo Ortega V urged Duterte to confront the alleged failures of the program instead of diverting the public's attention with her accusations.

According to the two House assistant majority leaders, the Vice President’s allegations of an “unending political attack” against her is meant to “distract” the public from the real question of accountability.

In a recent statement, Duterte said the alleged "Makabayan-Marcos-Romualdez" alliance was “masking the real problem of the country right now”

She is referring to the progressive opposition bloc in the lower chamber, as well as President Marcos and House Speaker Martin Romuadez.

Khonghun and Ortega, in a joint statement, said Duterte should focus on addressing the “damning findings” from the Commission on Audit (COA) instead of “fabricating” a so-called alliance. 

Based on COA’s 2023 audit report, DepEd’s P5.69 billion School-Based Feeding Program (SBFP) was found to have defective food items such as moldy, insect-infested nutribuns, rotting food, and mislabeled packaging.

The findings, which coincide with the last full year of DepEd under Duterte’s helm, mainly affected the school divisions in Aurora, Bulacan, Misamis Oriental, Iligan, and Quezon City.

Ortega noted that these lapses are proof that the Vice President had several shortcomings when she was still in charge of the department. 

“Ang mga nasayang na pondo ay malaking kawalan para sa mga batang dapat ay nakinabang,” he said.

(The wasted funds are a huge loss for the children who should have benefited.)

Duterte earlier resigned from DepEd, she was replaced by former senator Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara.

“Bilang lider ng DepEd noon, dapat siniguro niyang tama ang magiging implementasyon ng proyekto. Malinaw na command responsibility ito,” said Khonghun.

(As the previous leader of DepEd, she should have ensured that the implementation of the project would be proper. This is clearly an issue of command responsibility.)

“Hindi ito usapin ng pulitika, kundi ng wastong paggamit ng pondo ng bayan,” he emphasized.

(This is not a matter of politics, but of the proper use of public funds.)

Khonghun stresses that it is within the right of the public to know what happened with the billions of funding, which he says should have benefited children in need.