The Senate and the House of Representatives should stop babying Rodrigo Duterte Sr. and his junior, Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio, for the indisputable facts are that the Senior commanded his death squads from Davao City to kill no less than 3,000 people and expanded his killing frenzy with the “war on drugs” that massacred 30,000 Filipinos while the Junior ran amuck with the people’s money in December 2022, spending P112.5-million in “confidential funds, P73-million of which was disallowed by the Commission on Audit (COA.)
While Duterte Senior engaged in murder, Duterte Junior engaged in plunder, for which both should be held accountable, charged, prosecuted and convicted promptly. Both Duterte Senior and Duterte Junior engaged in uncivilized behavior, with the Senior cursing his way through the Senate hearing while mindlessly incriminating himself. He wrongly argued that he should be exonerated for the 30,000 murders of his bogus war on drugs since the cops who killed drug suspects were responsible for their criminal acts personally. The Pilate contrasts sharply with his declaration that he will solve the crime problem in six months but the drug problem actually worsened as Southern China triads expanded their operations in the country using the very advisers of Duterte Senior to eliminate their competitors.
At the House of Representatives, Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio tried to weasel her way through a budget hearing for the Office of the Vice President (OVP) by questioning the very authority of the panel, demanding the ouster of Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo (who incidentally defended the OVP budget last year and insisted there was an appropriation for confidential and intelligence funds, only that it was zero) and ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro, whom she said was convicted of child abuse by a Davao del Sur judge without hearing the defense evidence, a decision condemned worldwide, and accused Gabriela Rep. Arlene Brosas, Kabataan Rep. Raoul Manuel and Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro of engaging in political harassment.
Laughed at for her tortured defense, Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio could only engage in squid tactics, earning her the moniker “Inday Pusit.” In one hearing, the unlamented ex-president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who now represents Pampanga, made a tasteless defense of Sara by saying she cannot be compelled to take the oath since she was merely a “resource person” and not a “witness.” This tangled legalism is as inglorious as Arroyo’s record. Respect is never demanded and in the hearings at the Lower House, Sara’s rudeness is indefensible just as his recurring failure to answer questions on the budget betrayed her financial mismanagement and the plunder of taxpayer money. Apparently, Sara never learned that during Roman times, witnesses hold their balls to prove that they are telling the truth. The root of the term “testify” is “testes.”
Sara has boycotted the OVP budget hearings since Sept. 18, 2024, advancing stupid excuses to avoid being questioned. Since the budget hearings from 2022 onwards, Sara had to toss all questions on her budget proposals to Zuleika Lopez, who was not elected to defend the OVP appropriations, or to her other underlings. She just smiled her way to get the OVP budget approved, with nary a question from the House and the Senate. Yet, times have changed after the scams came. Now, she is being grilled for her basic ignorance of budget rules and called to task for her own reward system (which comes in cash, medicines, other goods, food and computers, office supplies, etc.) and the rentals of “safehouses” at the Bonifacio Global City (BGC) for millions of pesos. Sara cannot answer for her anomalous disbursements just as Duterte Senior cannot explain how he came up with the rewards for the capture or neutralization of “ninja” cops, the accumulation of cash for the reward system on the “war on drugs” featuring his valet Bong Go, now a senator, and implemented by Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa, the obedient cop, who also sits at the Senate.
Now, the House panel wants at least seven subordinates of Sara to be slapped with an immigration lookout bulletin order (ILBO) as they were privy to the misuse of OVP funds. Aside from Lopez, Manila Rep. Joel Chua also wants the ILBO to cover Lemuel Ortonio, the assistant chief of staff and bids and awards committee chairman, administrative and financial services director Rosalynne Sanchez, special disbursing officer Gina Acosta, chief accountant Julieta Villadelrey, former Education Assistant Secretary Sunshine Charry Fajarda and her husband Edward Fajarda, who are very close to Sara. Chua said there were reports that they were preparing to leave the country. And true enough, Sara’s chief of staff, Undersecretary Atty. Zuleika Lopez, skipped the probe yesterdaybecause she traveled to the United States on Monday.
According to acknowledgment receipts submitted by the OVP to the COA to justify its use of the money, P16 million in confidential funds were used to rent 34 safehouses during the dying days of 2022. One safehouse cost nearly P91,000 daily. COA couldn’t believe the figures and issued a notice of disallowance for P73 million out of the P125 million and directed Duterte, along with Acosta and Villadelrey, to return the amount to the government. The amount covered P10 million in rewards payment, P34.857 million for rewards in the form of “various goods,” another P24.93 million for rewards in the form of “medicines,” and P3.5 million for tables, chairs, desktop computers and printers with unclear confidential purposes.
If that were not enough, Gloria Mercado, former Department of Education (DepEd) undersecretary and head of procuring entity, told the committee that Sunshine Charry Fajarda, acting on behalf of Duterte as DepEd secretary then, gave her P450,000 in cash over nine months, allegedly to influence her decisions in the agency’s bidding process. Mercado produced the envelopes that contained the money and produced the receipts from a non-government organization to which she donated the money. Michael Poa, also Sara’s spokesman at DepEd, also admitted that Sara gave her money. Lawyer Resty Osias was another beneficiary of Sara’s generosity who confirmed that he had received monetary gifts from the boss. It was impossible for Sara to dole out so much monthly to these officials without getting anything in return. The lucre was being given out in the hope that these officials would do whatever Sara says. With the House and Senate getting admissions from Duterte Senior and the facts going against Duterte Junior in the House, the last thing the Marcos administration should do is pamper them with tender loving care rather than ship them to the detention room, where they both belong.
