Tinio: Only impeach trial can expose Sara’s confidential fund misuse

Vice President Sara Duterte. Photo by Lyn Rillon.

MANILA, Philippines — The receipt by the Office of the Vice President (OVP) of an unmodified opinion for fiscal year 2024 from the Commission on Audit (COA) would not change the fact that Vice President Sara Dutertes’ office got a notice of disallowance for its anomalous confidential fund (CF) use, ACT Teachers party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio said.

Tinio, in a message to reporters on Wednesday, said that this unmodified opinion would not address Duterte’s unanswered questions about the CF issues, including revelations made during committee hearings conducted by the 19th Congress’s House of Representatives.

“This doesn’t change the fact that COA issued a notice of disallowance against Duterte due to the misuse of confidential funds in 2022,” Tinio said.

“This is the same for the many anomalous expenditures made in her 2023 CF, which were revealed during Congressional hearings, including the use of fake names and falsified accomplishment reports that were submitted to COA,” he added.

According to Tinio, an ordinary COA audit would not reveal the issues that Duterte and her offices are involved in, which only further necessitates an impeachment trial.

“These issues would not be revealed in a simple COA audit only; that’s why only an impeachment trial can uncover the whole truth and ensure accountability,” he noted.

Earlier, it was reported that COA gave OVP an unmodified opinion for 2024.

READ: OVP gets `unmodified opinion’ from COA for fiscal year 2024

In a letter addressed to Duterte, the commission said that it has audited the financial statements of her office, including financial performance (revenues and expenses), cash flows (how the fund was spent), statements of changes in net assets/equity, as well as a statement of comparison of budget and actual amounts as of December 31 last year.

“In our opinion, the accompanying financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of OVP as at December 31, 2024,” a copy of COA’s letter released to the media on Wednesday reads.

According to the COA, it conducted its audit following the International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions.

An unmodified or unqualified opinion is issued when the auditor concludes that the financial statements are prepared in all material respects per the applicable financial reporting framework.

However, the COA clarified that an “unmodified opinion does not necessarily mean that there were no misstatements found during the audit nor there were no uncorrected misstatements as at year-end.”

To recall, the OVP likewise received an “unmodified opinion” from the COA in 2023. For 2022, the commission also issued the same remark for the OVP, which was headed by former Vice President Leni Robredo until Duterte took over in June of the same year.

In 2022, COA issued a notice of disallowance for P73.2 million of the OVP’s P125-million CF — an item which several lawmakers said should not be available in the first place, as the original budget crafted during Roberdo’s time did not have this provision.

READ: Sara Duterte’s confidential fund spending raises new, more doubts

The issue of possible CF misuse within OVP and the Department of Education (DepEd) while it was under Duterte was a hot topic in 2024, especially after the House committee on good government and public accountability conducted an inquiry.

One of the discoveries during the hearings was the revelation of weird names signing off acknowledgement receipts (ARs) for the confidential expenses made by Duterte’s offices.

ARs are submitted to the COA to prove that funding for projects reached its intended beneficiaries, which in this case, are confidential informants.

Antipolo City 2nd District Rep. Romeo Acop noticed that one of the individuals who signed the ARs was named Mary Grace Piattos — a name similar to a restaurant and a potato chip brand.

Later on, Lanao del Sur 1st District Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong showed two ARs — one for the Office of the Vice President and another for the Department of Education — which were both received by a certain Kokoy Villamin. However, the signatures and handwriting used by Villamin in the two documents were different.

Both names were also not found inside the Philippine Statistics Authority database.

Also, officials from DepEd and OVP have admitted that per Duterte’s instructions, they left the release of the CFs to individuals who are not designated as special disbursing officers (SDOs).

Gina Acosta, OVP’s SDO, said she left the release of CFs to Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group chief Col. Raymund Dante Lachica. Aside from Acosta, former DepEd SDO Edward Fajarda said that Duterte — when she was still Education secretary — designated Col. Dennis Nolasco as the official responsible for disbursing the CFs.

Lawmakers also observed that DepEd made it seem that CFs were used for a youth training program, when it is the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and local government units (LGUs) that shouldered most of the expenses.

The alleged CF misuse was one of the issues raised in the impeachment complaint against the Vice President. Last February 5, Duterte was impeached after 215 lawmakers filed and signed the fourth impeachment complaint against her.

But aside from the impeachment, the House of the 19th Congress has adopted a committee report which recommended the filing of criminal charges against Duterte and other officials from her office.