There was no appropriation for any confidential and intelligence fund (CIF) in the 2022 budget of the Office of the Vice President (OVP.) This means that Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio, who took over the OVP from Leni Robredo at 12:01 p.m. on June 30, 2022, cannot spend a single centavo from the OVP budget for CIF. Sara even refused to meet with Robredo to discuss a smooth turnover. Had she done so, she would have known that she cannot spend anything on her “informants” using the proceeds of an imaginary CIF. In fact, there was zero CIF for Robredo in six years.
On this score alone, Sara should be ousted for creating her own budget using the P125-million that she had cadged from the Palace. That money, explained then Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, came from the Contingent Fund (CF) and Sara is accountable for every centavo she had spent. It turns out now that the money from the CF was parlayed into disbursements for CIF, ostensibly to pay for “intelligence” from “Mary Grace Piattos,” “Pia Piattos-Lim” and “Renan Piattos,” “Chippy McDonald,” “Fernando Tempura,” obviously not from Portugal, “Carlos Miguel Oishi,” “Xiaome Ocho,” “Dan Rick Otso” and “Alan Rick Otso,” “Raymunda Jane Nova” and “Roman,” “Rome” and “Romeo,” all surnamed “Felicidad.” There were seven other leading beneficiaries among the thousands who enjoyed Sara’s munificence.
Sara doesn’t have the power of the purse that is reposed in the two chambers of Congress by the Constitution. Yet, as the Duterte dynasty of Davao City is prone to do, they can dispense with rules and regulations and not bother about investigations. If Rodrigo Duterte were capable of shooting the COVID-19 victims, Sara is likewise empowered to abolish logic and common sense. Here is the big problem with Sara: Give her an inch and she will demand a mile. That is the context of her petition that sought the issuance of a temporary restraining order (TRO) by the Supreme Court (SC) to stop the clarificatory hearings of the justice committee that she maliciously labeled as a “mini-trial.” This is like crying uncle, the way she did when the SC stopped the impeachment proceedings in July 2025. However, this year, she didn’t get the piece of candy she was craving for.
If the acknowledgment receipts (ARs) “confirmed” that the money used to pay the Piattos “informants” during the 11 dying days of December 2022, came from the OVP CIF, then Sara is ipso facto liable for graft. Without any appropriation, there can be no disbursement. The culture of “palusot” has compelled Sara to weave fairy tales about the immediacy of the disbursements. But she apparently swims in a lake of putrid remedies. First, she had to spend the money with dispatch to avoid returning the funds to the National Treasury. Second, the payments were for confidential purposes, so the Commission on Audit (COA) need not verify it, which is wrong since an entire office at COA monitors, evaluates and disallows fraudulent payments. Without proof that the information secured was correct and satisfied “intelligence” requirements, Sara should reimburse the National Treasury. Third, and worse, Sara’s special disbursing officers (SDOs) confirmed that they were ordered to give scores of millions of pesos to active-duty military officers and bodyguards of Sara for “disposition.” COA did not authorize any of them to become SDOs but Sara did appoint members of her security detail as SDOs, again in violation of the law.
The House justice panel under Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro must zero in on Sara’s illegal disbursements, the impunity in squandering the people’s money and her mendacity for insisting that all her transactions at the OVP and the Department of Education (DepEd), which she haughtily claimed she could modernize, streamline and develop into an efficient teaching cadre with a budget of P100-billion. Fortunately, Malacanang and many lawmakers saw such an offer to be another occasion for graft and promptly ignored it. Another important matter that deserves the justice panel’s scrutiny is how Sara could have wasted P500 million in CIF as soon as she took power inasmuch as she wanted to immediately buy, lease or construct 13 satellite offices and three extension offices in 2022. COA should assert its role as guardian of the people’s money by disallowing such purchases and leases. There is no need for the OVP to have so many satellite and extension offices.
It is evident that such offices could have served as advanced detachments for the planned ouster of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in 2025 that Sara had botched and which detained Ramil Madriaga had confirmed. It hews closely to Sara’s plan to organize her own 975,000-member “urban poor army” in the National Capital Region to boost her march to Malacanang. Apparently, Sara chases rainbows and horizons as a politician gripped by delusion. True enough, Metro Manila walls were festooned in 2023 with posters demanding that Sara take over the Palace, which is akin to jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
Days before the April 14 justice panel hearing, the Duterte forces reorganized themselves, with Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte taking over as president of PDP-Laban, the formerly illustrious opposition party during the martial law years that the late Senate President Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr. organized and nurtured. Today, it “unites” the orphaned Duterte backers who would soon bicker among themselves as the grouplet atomizes further into the Sara and Bong Go factions. Sara and Bong Go are afflicted by what is known in Latin as “libido dominandi,” or lust for power described by St. Augustine in “The City of God.” Before she can even truly bloviate about her presidential candidacy in 2028, she must first navigate the high hurdles posed by the impeachment complaints. Just as Sara cannot wiggle out of her self-inflicted CIF horror, neither can she debunk the other articles of impeachment lodged against her.
Article 2 of the impeachment complained covered CIF and at least P254.898 million in “ghost expenses,” P500 million squandered by Sara at OVP and the P112.5 million wasted at DepEd in 2022. Under the DepEd, P43.2 million was given away to 405 individuals who cannot be traced. Lawmakers said under Sara’s command, both the OVP and DepEd committed financial irregularities like technical malversation, graft, bribery and corruption with impunity. Yet, Sara has been accusing her detractors of manufacturing evidence against her on the pretext that propagating stories about the allegations in newspapers, broadcast networks and social media are all meant to derail her march to the Palace. Take it with a grain of salt, and ask Sara to just write her reactions, if she can, or better still, order her consultants to write credible speeches. Letting her talk is torture as no one can make heads or tails of what she is perorating about. Talk of a female version of Trump.#
