Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio’s “substantial compliance” with the rules and procedures of the Commission on Audit (COA) has proven to be shot full of holes after the agency disclosed that the Office of the Vice President (OVP) submitted 1,200 acknowledgment receipts of dubious value to justify P125-million in expenses incurred the final 11 days of 2022.
During a hearing on Nov. 5, 2024, COA confirmed that the OVP submitted acknowledgment receipts with erroneous dates, unreadable names, and mere signatures that did not justify payments from the OVP’s “advanced” P125-million confidential funds in 2022. The Office of the President (OP) earlier confirmed that the money advanced to Sara came from the Contingent Fund (CF), for which she is accountable. Moreover, under the 2022 OVP under former Vice President Leni Robredo, there was zero allotment for confidential and intelligence funds (CIF), meaning Sara violated the law and could be charged criminally.
As the saying goes, “matalino man ang matsing, napaglalalangan din.” Sara did not anticipate that the Makabayan Coalition lawmakers would scrutinize her expenses in the first six months of her incumbency as vice president while also heading the Department of Education (DepEd.) They sought documents and found a paper trail about the illegitimate disbursement of P125 million from the Contingent Fund (CF) of Malacanang via the Department of Budget and Management (DBM.) Later, the COA found irregularities in the disbursements and asked that receipts covering the expenses charged to Sara’s CIF be submitted. Then, all hell broke loose, and now there’s hell to pay.
For their dogged hunt for the receipts, ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro, Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Arlene Brosas and Kabataan Rep. Raoul Manuel have been accused by Sara of political persecution and acting as “puppets” of Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, with whom Sara feuded. The three Makabayan lawmakers promptly dismissed Sara’s vitriol as meaningless since lawmakers are duty-bound to protect the national coffers from being plundered. Of course, the trolls and crones of the Dutertes went into overdrive, tagging anyone who assails Sara is “an enemy of the state,” “an enemy of peace” and an “enemy of the Dutertes.” Cheap messaging to deflect and divert the nagging issues.
Sara never learned that it is her fiduciary duty as head of the OVP to ensure that every centavo is spent judiciously. Yet, the COA said it cannot make heads or tails of the receipts that would clear up the mess about the questionable disbursement of P125 million in the final 11 days of 2022. Lawyer Gloria Camora of COA’s Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office (ICFAO) said the acknowledgment receipts were for the payment of rewards that came in the form of cash, medicine, “other goods” and purchases of supplies, equipment, and food. This is the first time in the history of bounty payments in this country that informants are paid in kind, with money doled out in the opulent “safehouses” of Bonifacio Global City (BGC) where presumably Christmas parties were held.
Camora disclosed that 158 acknowledgment receipts for P23.8 million bore wrong dates, indicating that haste makes waste. They were all dated December 2023 instead of December 2022. Worse, 787 acknowledgment receipts had no names, others contained only signatures and the names in 302 receipts were unreadable. Sara earlier bragged that the OVP’s documents would prove that all the P73 million out of the P125 million could all be accounted for. The more she talked about political persecution and an evil plot to destroy her reputation, the deeper the rabbit hole she dug. It is fairly easy to reply when asked, but it surely raises suspicions if one continues to equivocate or hides behind circular arguments. To complete her farce, she simply told her subordinates to shun summonses from the House panel by claiming the inquiry was not in aid of legislation.
Yet, the OVP’s top guns have become regular absentees from the budget hearings, apparently upon instructions by their superiors. Sara’s chief of staff, Atty. Zuleika Lopez flew to the US before the hearing on Nov. 5, 2024. Six other OVP officials have not materialized at the Batasang Pambansa. Only Sara’s spokesman Michael Poa appeared, only to tell lawmakers that he had his contract with OVP pre-terminated. Poa was the same guy who admitted that Sara’s trusted aide gave him money intermittently but said it came during the Christmas holidays. One down, six more to go. The more Sara refuses to clarify what happened to the P125 million, the more people are convinced that she has become much worse than the time he manhandled a court sheriff in Davao City when she was still the mayor there. Incidentally, COA also put Sara to task for the missing 11,000 city employees, the unaccounted city assets, and cash. All told, P2.7 billion in CIF funds were spent under her watch.
In the OVP case, the COA may never find the official receipts covering the P125 million since ghosts are not supposed to be signing receipts. Given this situation, the agency will never get to the bottom of the fictitious disbursements. Once established that the money was not spent in accordance with the law and COA rules and regulations, the agency may recommend the prosecution of Sara and the other OVP officials who could not answer the tough questions from Makabayan lawmakers, Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro and Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo. Yet, Sara could not put up but would not shut up, with her TikTok gimmicks seen widely as a ploy to make people forget about the “grand waldasan of 2022.” This is a case of a creature having a will that is stronger than her skill, which doesn’t cure the dismal Sara record. Now that the Senate has adopted the P733 million budget for OVP next year, Sara will howl again and accuse the usual culprits of crafting a conspiracy to malign her, tarnish her reputation or whatever is left of it, and oust her from her perch. She created her own problems and now, she has tied herself in knots. If Harry Houdini were alive, would he help Sara free herself from her chains?
