If Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio were so unimportant in the scheme of things under the current administration, then why the hell are four committees of the House of Representatives continuing the investigation into the misuse of at least P612.5 million of confidential and intelligence funds (CIF), including the P125-million that she cadged from the Office of the President (OP) in December 2022 that executive secretary Lucas Bersamin claimed was charged to the Contingent Fund (CF) of the Palace, for which Sara is accountable.
Certainly, Palace pencil pushers knew that labeling some money as CIF does not permit Sara to pay millions to snack brands Piattos, Nova, and others and neither will it legitimize the rewards for “Kokoy Villamin,” obviously sounding like the entertainer Yoyoy Villame, or the fabrication that the Office of the Vice President (OVP) bankrolled the conduct of counter-insurgency Youth Leadership Summits (YLS) paid for by local government units (LGUs) and Philippine Army (PA), as attested to by at least three Army officers. It was obvious that Bersamin feared that the money would end up in some people’s pockets and not for noble purposes.
You must never deem as unimportant the dubious rentals of 34 “safehouses” in Bonifacio Global City (BGC), where the Maximum Security Unit (MSU) stockades of the PA that used to hold Ninoy Aquino, Serge Osmena, the late Jorge Cabardo, Geny Lopez and Ka Inggo Domingo, a colonel whom the Marcos dictatorship considered to be an enemy for his closeness to oppositionists, during martial law. The spartan detention facilities of MSU would be a dungeon compared to the ritzy lodgings of BGC, for which scores of millions of pesos were spent for rentals and the distribution of “rewards” that ranged from filthy lucre to medicines, “other products,” laptops, desks, chairs, air-conditioners, and furniture.
No one can vouch for the credibility of the 1,347 acknowledgment receipts (ARs) produced by the Sara task force. They are as fictitious as the names and signatures slathered on the ARs. Yet, Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio has been bugging the ears of the deaf and polluting the eyes of the blind by insisting that the Commission on Audit (COA) had confirmed that all of her transactions were above, never mind that auditors demanded that Sara return the P73-million in disallowances. That demand only confirms the dishonesty that attended the fund disbursements. Is Sara like Caesar’s wife who is beyond reproach? Or is she an egg short of an omelet, a banana short of a bunch or a card short of a deck? Her public hissy fits have no probative value and not even the bad drama of Zuleika Lopez was enough to force St. Luke’s to diagnose that the lawyer was sick. But the Sara cast violated the Hippocratic Code by harming the hospital, bringing in a non-patient not subjected to triage, and getting some attention that they richly did not serve. “Primum non nocere.” First, do no harm to the national coffers and don’t waste the people’s time.
These are trivial matters, indeed, for those who do not give a whit about the plunder of taxpayer money and who regard it beneath their dignity to rock the boat and proceed deeper into the tortured path paved by Sara. Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s unseemly dismissal of the investigation into the financial shenanigans of the OVP and DepEd is, in itself, a form of meddling into the affairs of House of Representatives and a flouting of the purported “interdepartmental courtesy” which covers the three branches of the Philippine government. Whether leaked deliberately or not, Marcos Jr. may be trying to say that there may be more than a million chances for Sara to make peace “para hindi maging magulo ang tabakuhan.”
There is nothing trivial about the Duterte Jr. affair, the Makabayan Coalition argues, since Sara should be held accountable for the millions of pesos lost to fictive creatures who produced “information” against state enemies like “activists” and bullies lurking outside school premises nationwide. Likewise, Sara’s feet should be held to the fire for distributing cash monthly to DepEd officials, with her underlings confirming that the money came from her along with the instructions to ensure that the money is received by officials who never knew why Sara was so generous. Cornered about this Santa Claus bit, Sara raised hell and tagged that it was First Lady Liza Cacho Araneta Marcos who trained her on giving money away.
Threatening to behead Marcos Jr. and throwing the remains of Marcos Sr. in the West Philippine Sea (WPS), as well as assassinating the First Couple and Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez are also not serious matters that would divert the attention of the Palace from the serious business of governance. However, the Makabayan Coalition argues that ethical governance compels all officials not to steal from the national kitty, not to forge ARs and invent names and signatures in a deliberate attempt to delude her COA, make fools of lawmakers investigating the Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio scandal and ultimately insult Filipino voters.
Makabayan Coalition takes the Duterte Jr. issue seriously after analyzing the Palace, budget, and COA documents, the thousands of receipts that the OVP and DepEd produced, and assessing the paper trail and the testimonies of Sara’s underlings that nail her. Now a cornered sewer rat in her cul-de-sac, Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio seeks public sympathy even as she admits that she despises crowds and has no truck with the hoi polloi. Poor Sara backers who are hungry, thirsty, and penniless, your goddess doesn’t even like you. Why back her at all? The same question applies to Marcos Jr.
