by Diego Morra
There is a very apt Latin phrase, or warning, to the Filipino people about Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio: Numquam iterum. It simply means never again, which was exactly what her cousin Nuelle Duterte, a clinical psychologist, counseled all voters in 2022. She begged: Don’t elect any Duterte, please!
However, before we tackle Nuelle’s objections to any of her cousins running for elective post, we should look closely into the allegations contained in the impeachment complaint lodged against her, with two complaints surviving and presumably including the very recitation of illegal acts committed by Sara that should compel the two chambers of Congress to seek her removal for betrayal of public trust, graft, gross and inexcusable waste of public funds and illegal disbursements of billions of pesos in public money.
Yet, there is a glaring abuse perpetrated by Sara as soon as she took over the Office of the Vice President (OVP) in July 2022: She pleaded for the release of P125-million from Malacanang purportedly to fund the establishment of 13 satellite offices and three extension offices nationwide. The amount, she argued, would be deducted from her Confidential and Intelligence Fund (CIF) amounting to P500 million annually. This cannot pass legal muster by any stretch inasmuch as the 2022 General Appropriations Act (2022 GAA) did not contain any CIF for her. She could have known as much from a meeting with then Vice President Leni Robredo, whom, she refused to meet.
Robredo had ZERO CIF from 2016 to 2022. There was no provision for the establishment of OVP extension and satellite offices under the 2022 OVP budget, thus rendering her disbursement of millions for the purchase, lease or construction of such offices void ab initio. If there were no money earmarked for such offices along with other “facilities,” the logical thing the Commission on Audit (COA) must do is to disallow such expenses. On its face, COA is only questioning the lavish spending on the Mary Grace Piattoses of her realm but not the illegality of her squandermania. Moreover, former executive secretary Lucas Bersamin said the money advanced to Sara came from the Contingent Fund (CF) for which she is accountable. COA should be breathing down Sara’s neck for not understanding that nothing in the Robredo budget justified her scramble to spend the P125-million in the last two minutes of 2025.
Funny, indeed is Sara’s defense that since the P112.5-million disbursed in the dying days of 2022 came from the CIF, she is not compelled to reveal who got millions from her special disbursing officers (SDOs) as well as military officers who were never designated as SDOs. In one of her usual chats, Sara claimed that since the expenditures were “confidential,” the beneficiaries must remain “confidential,” along with the “information” for which taxpayers paid an arm and a leg to “secure.” As a former mayor and a lawyer at that, Sara should abide by COA rules, or is it the case that regulations do not apply to her?
Since Robredo never got a single red centavo for CIF, why should Sara receive hundreds of millions of pesos annually for CIF when the OVP is not mandated to collect intelligence, engage in surveillance and monitor the “enemies of the state” in every nook and cranny that she fancies. Inasmuch as the Department of Education (DepEd) does not employ hoplites who would guard all elementary and secondary schools to ferret out young “terrorist infiltrators,” Sara cannot be allowed to utilize the precious money that the administration borrows or secures from taxes and accumulates through imposts to finance her local and foreign junkets. In effect, the OVP and DepEd appropriations sustain her campaigning for the presidency since July 1, 2026.
As the impeachment complaints were lodged against her, Sara was forced to go on overdrive, suddenly dishing out script upon script of statements, from EDSA to the US-Israeli war against Iran, “corruption,” the quick evacuation of Filipinos from the Middle East while other clowns associated with her tried vainly to craft the unified theory of “maleta corruption,” targeting the Makabayan Coalition (Sara’s nemesis), Mamamayang Liberal Rep. Leila de Lima, former generals and Malacanang. Thinking that they have hypersonic cluster bombs, they crafted the P805-billion distribution network with 18 ex-Marines (six of whom faced murder charges, four were bogus Mariners and the rest discharged or retired.) The chorus demanding an investigation into the allegations by the residents of the Mike Defensor Witness Production Village includes the spokesman of the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) and lawyers suffering from an epidemic of lost cases.
Aside from the P112.5-million disallowances and the P500-million CIF appropriations, Sara is also on the hot seat for P12.3-billion in unused DepEd cash, P12-billion in disallowances, P5.6-billion in anomalous feeding programs, P237-million in misused CIF, P11.1-million in travel expenses, overpriced OVP laptops, CCTVs and other equipment. Probers are looking at the Davao City CIF totaling P2.597 billion, broken down as follows: P144-million in 2016; P293-million the following year and P420-million in 2018. From 2019 to 2022, Davao City had a CIF of P460-million annually. That’s a lot of finagled people’s money. #
