Vice President Sara Duterte on Thursday finally disclosed where her controversial confidential funds in the Department of Education (DepEd) went. They were spent on investigations of alleged corruption in the agency she used to head.
That included the alleged anomalous laptop deal with the construction firm owned by former Ako Bicol Rep. Elizaldy Co.
Speaking at the Pandesal Forum at the Kamuning Bakery in Quezon City, Duterte said the DepEd under her conducted its own investigation into the scandals in the agency and utilized the confidential funds granted to her. This was despite the DepEd’s own claim last year that it was unaware of how the vice president spent the P112.5 million worth of confidential funds in 2023. Duterte was also mum on how the secret funds were used in the DepEd, pointing to the Commission on Audit being the proper agency authorized to disclose where the funds went.
Her confidential funds in DepEd, along with the P500 million granted to her for the Office of the Vice President, were used as the basis for her impeachment complaint for allegedly misusing the secret funds, which she repeatedly avoided discussing with the media.
For Duterte, however, she said that the confidential funds were primarily used to start a probe into the corruption that she claimed was rampant within the agency. ‘There were many reports of corruption inside the Department of Education, not just in the central office, but also the regional offices,’ she told reporters.
‘So, whenever there are reports, we will investigate, and one of those we investigated was the laptop [deal],’ she also said.
This was in reference to the P2.4 billion laptop procurement during the time of her predecessor in the DepEd, former Education Secretary Leonor Briones, who was among the officials charged at the Office of the Ombudsman over the alleged anomalous deal. This also involves the Sunwest Construction and Development Corp. founded by Co, one of the lawmakers at the center of the flood control scandal.
But according to Duterte, she claimed that their investigation found that the procurement of the alleged overpriced laptops ‘did not happen’ inside the DepEd, but within the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
‘So, not all the procurement documents are in the DepEd,’ Duterte said. ‘What we could only do back then was to blacklist [companies].’
However, she said they also did not succeed in blacklisting the companies, which led to ‘our hands being tied’ and would only rely on the fraud audit reports conducted by the Commission on Audit and the Senate blue ribbon committee hearing on the matter ‘to determine the personnel involved.’
Whether she reported this to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. when she was still part of the Cabinet, Duterte responded: ‘My God! Have you ever considered that our President was even working? He never asked that, at all!’ ‘I swear to the flag. Haven’t you noticed that the governance has no direction at all? He doesn’t command, he doesn’t ask,’ Duterte said.