Only Vice President Sara Duterte and her former security chief knew how millions of pesos in confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) were spent, a top OVP official testified on Wednesday, raising fresh questions from senator-judges over who was accountable for the secretive expenditures.
Lemuel Ortonio, OVP assistant chief of staff, said that apart from Duterte, former Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group (VPSPG) commander Col. Raymund Lachica knew how the confidential funds were implemented.
‘The way I understand it, Sir, as the head of agency, I would understand that she knows the implementation,’ Ortonio replied to presiding officer Francis Escudero’s question on whether Duterte knew how the funds were spent.
Escudero pressed the witness, who had been declared hostile by the prosecution, on whether Lachica also knew how the activities funded by the confidential funds were carried out.
‘Yes, sir, as the security officer,’ Ortonio said.
‘So, you as assistant chief of staff, and the chief of staff herself [referring to Zuleika Lopez], doesn’t know; and Colonel Lachica, who is not part of the OVP, [knows]?’ Escudero asked further.
‘Yes, sir,’ Ortonio answered.
The exchange came on the 19th day of Duterte’s impeachment trial and despite Ortonio’s confirmation that Duterte, Lopez and he, as assistant chief of staff, were the office’s three highest-ranking officials.
Defense objections overruled
Escudero took over the questioning after prosecution lawyer Mae Divinagracia sought to establish whether Duterte alone among the OVP’s top officials knew how the confidential funds were used.
Defense lawyer Kristine Ferrer objected, arguing that the question was misleading and vague and that Lopez had not testified before the impeachment court on the confidential funds.
Escudero overruled the objection, saying the court had taken judicial notice of the 2024 House proceedings, during which Lopez testified, and that the transcript contained statements along those lines.
Ortonio repeatedly told the court that he had no participation in the implementation, disbursement, recording or preparation of liquidation reports involving the confidential funds.
Asked by Divinagracia whether he knew where the money went or which OVP programs received it, Ortonio said he had no personal knowledge of how the funds were implemented.
The defense again objected, but Escudero allowed the questioning, saying it involved an issue that was also on the minds of the senator-judges.
No personal knowledge
‘So if you have no personal knowledge where the funds were spent, you also do not have the knowledge if the funds were used for the OVP’s regular programs?’ Escudero asked.
‘I don’t have personal knowledge how the confidential funds were implemented,’ Ortonio replied.
‘At all? Where it went, you don’t know? Whether it ended up right or wrong, dirty or clean, you don’t know.?’ Escudero asked in mixed English and Filipino.
‘I would have no personal knowledge, Sir,’ the witness said.
Duterte ‘most responsible’
Senator-judge Risa Hontiveros then asked whether every major action involving the confidential funds-from the request for the money and the amounts sought to the justification, use and responses to auditors-was decided and approved by Duterte.
Ortonio said he furnished Duterte, as head of the agency, with copies and information and that the documents submitted to the Commission on Audit carried her final sign-off.
Asked whether Duterte was therefore ‘the most responsible for all of it,’ Ortonio answered: ‘Based on that, ma’am, being the head of agency, ma’am, I would say so, ma’am.’
Lachica’s employment status
Senator-judge Vicente Sotto III, meanwhile, questioned Ortonio about Lachica’s employment status in the OVP.
Ortonio said Lachica, as commander of the VPSPG, was not an OVP employee but was designated by the Armed Forces of the Philippines to head the security unit.
‘Therefore, he is not employed? He does not have any employment status in the Office of the Vice President?’ Sotto asked.
Ortonio answered in the affirmative, underscoring the questions over why an officer outside the OVP’s regular personnel structure appeared to have knowledge of the confidential funds while its two other highest-ranking officials did not.
Lacson seeks fund records
Senator-judge Panfilo Lacson raised another unresolved issue, saying senator-judges were still wondering whether the unusual names appearing in documents represented real people who actually received reward money as informants.
Lacson suggested that the impeachment court subpoena documents relating to the OVP’s programs, projects and activities (PAPs), physical and financial plans (PFPs), and expected outcomes so the senator-judges could examine the underlying records themselves.
‘There is a presumption the funds were used properly, but there’s still that doubt that we cannot remove because there are so many issues that came out during the trial,’ Lacson said, stressing that the court needed to be satisfied before deciding the case on the basis of evidence.
Escudero said the court could exercise that power at the appropriate time. He said the general rule was for the impeachment court to remain a passive body and leave it to the prosecution and defense to seek the evidence they considered necessary.
But after both sides have presented their evidence in chief, Escudero said, the court may call or recall witnesses, summon a person not named by either party and issue subpoenas for relevant documents.
‘Copy-paste’ budget plans
Lacson also assailed what he described as ‘copy-paste’ descriptions in the OVP’s regular budget and confidential and intelligence funds plans.
Citing the 2022 and 2023 General Appropriations Acts and the OVP’s PFPs, Lacson noted that the office received P621.6 million under its regular budget and P125 million in confidential funds in the fourth quarter of 2022, while in 2023 it received P2.21 billion in regular funds and P500 million in confidential funds.
He said virtually identical program descriptions and physical targets appeared in the regular and confidential fund documents, including targets involving areas under surveillance and the implementation of activities without security-related incidents.
Lacson said the descriptions could at least have been differentiated, calling the apparent ‘copy-paste’ practice an insult to common sense.
He later clarified that when he described the practice as ‘stupid,’ he was referring to the descriptions and nomenclatures of the PAPs, PFPs and physical targets, not to any individual.