In mid-2023, Filipinos were left incensed as reports surfaced, pointing to potential corruption and power abuse within the Duterte family.

Vice President Sara Duterte faced severe backlash amid allegations of exorbitant spending, with an eye-popping P125 million reportedly squandered from confidential funds (CF) within an astonishingly brief 11-day period.

This lavish expenditure, amounting to an alarming P11 million per day, was confirmed by the Commission on Audit (COA) during a contentious plenary debate at the House of Representatives, PhilStar reported.

Duterte hastily corrected the information, asserting that the funds were disbursed over 19 days, spanning from December 13 to 31, 2022.

Regardless of the duration, the news remained as controversial as ever, especially considering that Congress had not allocated any CF to the Office of the Vice President (OVP) in 2022, consistent with previous years during the term of former Vice President Leni Robredo.

The revelation of OVP’s P125 million in CF expenses came to light in the COA’s 2022 annual audit report (AAR) on the agency, reported by media outlets in July.

Interestingly, the COA report did not specify the source of the OVP’s confidential funds, and it was only disclosed during a subsequent House hearing that the hefty P125 million originated from the Office of the President (OP).

In an attempt to legitimize the exorbitant spending, Sara, on August 22, 2022, sought a budget augmentation of P403.46 million from the Department of Budget and Management, ostensibly to “ensure continuous operations of the OVP under the current year.”

Currently, at least three petitions challenging the legality of the fund transfer from the OP to the OVP are pending before the Supreme Court, with petitioners urging the court to compel Sara to return the P125 million to the treasury.

Adding fuel to the fire, Congress decided to strip both the OVP and the Department of Education (DepEd), also under Sara’s purview, of any CF for 2024.

The combined proposed CF of P650 million for the OVP and DepEd was reallocated to agencies engaged in security and intelligence work.

A deeper dive into the COA’s previous annual audit reports (AARs) reveals a pattern of significant confidential fund expenditures by Sara, extending back to her tenure as the mayor of Davao City.

From 2016 to 2022, the AARs show that the Davao City government, under Sara’s leadership, incurred confidential expenses escalating from P144 million in 2016 to a staggering P460 million yearly from 2019 to 2022.

The financial scrutiny extends beyond Sara, reaching her father, Rodrigo Duterte.

COA’s previous annual financial reports (AFRs) on the national government expose Duterte’s penchant for substantial confidential spending.

The OP’s confidential and intelligence fund (CIF) expenses skyrocketed during Duterte’s term, reaching billions of pesos. In 2017, the OP’s CIE expenses spiked by 252.33 percent to P2.52 billion, representing 28.05 percent of the national government’s total expenses for the year.

The COA’s AFR for 2020, the year it began segregating CIF expenses, disclosed that P2.32 billion and P2.25 billion of the OP’s P4.57-billion expenses were allocated for confidential and intelligence purposes, respectively.

In 2021, the OP incurred a total of P4.5 billion in CIF expenses, constituting nearly half of the national government’s P9.08-billion total CIF expenses.

As Duterte’s term came to a close in 2022, the OP’s CIF spending remained unchanged, signaling a persistent trend of extravagant confidential fund usage within the Duterte family.

The questionable financial practices of the Duterte dynasty demand thorough scrutiny and public accountability.