The refusal of Sara Duterte to account for the anomalous spending of her confidential funds is enough reason to withhold funding for her office until she is able to properly explain the questionable expenses she made in 2022. Duterte’s arrogance hides her fear of being exposed as a notorious spender of people’s money. Her real problem is not just to persuade legislators and the COA that her CIF spending was justified, but to convince ordinary taxpayers, including her supporters, that she was really able to spend 125 million pesos in just 11 days during a holiday period.
Duterte’s CIF scandal reflects the cavalier attitude of politicians in handling the people’s money and their criminal sense of entitlement that they can divert these funds for their personal benefit.
It is a reminder of how Congress and the officials of the Marcos Jr government colluded to allocate CIF to civilian agencies. There is a need to scrutinize the increased CIF spending of the office of the president and even state security forces. Duterte, Marcos Jr, and all public officials should not be allowed to cite security matters when asked about suspicious spending of funds.
Bayan enjoins the people to remain vigilant during the budget deliberations and to call for the realignment of funds from CIF and other lump sum pork barrel items to social services. (PR)
