by Diego Morra
The March 31, 2026 order of the Commission on Audit (COA) for Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio to return P375-million in confidential funds for three quarters of 2023 is a damning indictment of her squandermania. COA demanded that the entire sum be returned since the money was advanced to Col. Raymund Dante Lachica, the former chief of Sara’s security unit, contrary to the provisions of Joint Circular No. 2015-01 that prohibit such advances to personnel who are not special disbursing officers (SDOs).
Since nothing moves at the Office of the Vice President (OVP) without permission from Sara, SDO Gina Acosta made such cash advances with the express authority from the vice president. It was impossible for Sara not to have read the circular, which binds the OVP to abide by the rules and regulations of COA, which is empowered to protect taxpayer money and prevent misuse of funds appropriated annually. By violating the circular, Sara makes herself vulnerable to charges of being lawless herself. That circular had been in force since 2015 and, apparently, former vice president Leni Robredo did not violate its provisions.
With the COA order now out in the open, the claim of the Sara camp that the OVP was cleared by commission has been debunked. Sara has become a recidivist, or has ignored the circular, by allowing cash advances from the confidential fund to be given to Col. Lachica, who was never authorized by the COA to be an SDO. Contrary to the pompous claims of Sara’s drumbeaters, COA disallowed all three cash advances at P125 million each inasmuch as there was no proof that the “rewards” were for “correct” intelligence inputs from valid informants, not phantom informers like Mary Grace Piattos and her gang.
Aside from Sara and Acosta, Lachica and chief OVP accountant Julieta Villadelrey are also on the hook for having participated in what the COA has confirmed to be a scam. Specifically, COA disallowed the confidential expense (CE) of P199 million since they were backed only by acknowledgment receipts (ARs), and lacked sales invoices or official receipts (ORs.) The P62 million paid out as “rewards” was also invalidated by COA since they were not supported by any documentation that proved the “success” of both information collection and surveillance activities. COA has a specialized unit dealing with CE and the real names of recipients are kept in a secure file for validation. Without any validation, COA must disallow any expense. COA also junked the P300,000 cash advance for “reimbursement” of expenses.
The COA order is different from the order demanding that she return more than P73 million in CE spent during the dying days of 2022 that state auditors had disallowed. It was the same year when the annual OVP budget did not contain a provision for CF. On this score alone, Sara broke the law and appropriated borrowed money from Malacanang for use in imagined intelligence gathering or surveillance. These are illegitimate, illegal activities for OVP. It was the Rodrigo Duterte regime that did not appropriate a single centavo for Robredo’s CF. Yet, Sara created her own law, wasted millions and failed to justify the CE before the COA.
COA had already denied OVP’s appeal to reverse the commission’s findings in its April 10, 2026 on the bogus confidential expenses. After losing at COA, Sara is now expected to run to the Supreme Court (SC) to reverse the ruling. However, the SC is not a trier of facts and is expected to rule only on the questions of law. Can Sara assail the COA circular which she is bound to respect? She is now howling about “due process” but millions of Filipinos are also entitled to “due process” from her, which means justifying her CE. If COA cannot be convinced by her blatherskite and bogus ARs, false names and misappropriation of funds, then she has to answer for all her illegal actions. There is no such thing as Sara’s Law or Sara’s Logic and Sarah’s Truth.
Exasperated by Sara’s proclivity to lie and cheat her way, Bicol Saro Rep. Terry Ridon said “the latest disallowance is not an isolated finding. It demonstrates a continuing pattern of confidential fund misuse marked by the same fundamental defect: the repeated failure to justify the expenditures with sufficient legal, factual, and documentary basis.” The COA findings further strengthened the impeachment case against Sara, and her 80% rating in the 2005 Bar examinations will not save her from the impeachment trial.
By not confronting the evidence against her, Sara also gives credence to her basic inability to answer damning questions or debunk the evidence of her fiscal mismanagement. The best lawyers are those who speak the truth and deliver their arguments in logical fashion. If Sara cannot deliver her message to elementary school pupils clearly, how can she defend herself before lawmakers? Let this be a fair warning to the electorate: Sara threatens to head an agnoiocracy should spineless justices succumb to her caprice and grant her extraordinary relief using the shield of “due process.” An agnoiocracy is defined as a state led by a ruling class that is not only uneducated but also hostile to knowledge, facts, legal norms and logic. Institutional ignorance is bliss? #
