MANILA, Philippines – House lawmakers continued on Thursday, October 17, to sift through the secret expenditures made by the Office of the Vice President (OVP), and in the process raised alarm bells over what they thought were the puzzling rental costs of safe houses it had used.
Acknowledgment receipts provided by the OVP to the Commission on Audit (COA) indicate that the daily rental cost of the safe houses could have gone as high as P250,000, a figure that dwarfs an overnight stay in five-star hotels in the Philippines.
The figure was derived from a receipt that showed the OVP, over a four-night period beginning December 28, 2022, spent P1 million to pay for the rental of a safe house.
“Didn’t you wonder why it was so expensive, P1 million in just four days? What kind of safe house is this? Does this safe house have a swimming pool, does it have WiFi in BGC?” House good government committee chairman Joel Chua asked COA, which does not have information on what the shelter looked like.
Other receipts revealed that the OVP spent P8.75 million for the payment of rental of safe houses from a three-day period beginning December 27, 2022.
Overall, the safe houses were rented from an 11-day period in 2022, as part of the OVP’s confidential expenses worth P125 million, all exhausted by yearend. A total of 73 million from that number had been disallowed by state auditors.
Gloria Camora, the COA team leader that looked into the OVP’s confidential expenses, also confirmed that the agency spent P16 million for each of the first three quarters of 2023 for the rental of safe houses.
The number of days that the same P16 million per quarter was spent varied, however — for the last quarter of 2022, 11 days; first quarter of 2023, 53 days; for the second quarter of 2023, 67 days; and for the third quarter of 2023, 79 days.
“Is that regular, the same amount but different number of days?” Manila 1st District Representative Ernesto Dionisio Jr. asked COA.
“That’s slightly steep, most especially the one in 2022 since the fund was exhausted in 11 days,” Camora answered.
None from the Office of the Vice President showed up during Thursday’s hearing despite the invitation sent by the good government committee, saying in a position paper that the hearing was “unnecessary” since it “lacks clear legislative objective or contemplated legislation that is expected as an outcome of the deliberations.”
The congressional inquiry seeks to determine whether Vice President Sara Duterte misused public funds in the OVP and the Department of Education, when she was its agency secretary.
The Vice President has asked the House to stop the hearing, accusing lawmakers of political persecution. – Rappler.com