Unless the House of Representatives will also investigate audit findings on the way the Office of the President disbursed billions of pesos in confidential and intelligence funds in 2023, leaders of the legislative chamber cannot claim fairness in the way it treats officials of the executive department.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Vice President Sara Duterte challenged the Lower House to also conduct an investigation of the office of President Ferdinand Marcos which had been tagged by the Commission on Audit as the top confidential and intelligence fund spender for 2023.

Duterte said the Lower House must prove that it has not singled out the Office of the Vice President in the conduct of legislative inquiry if it really intends to pass laws on the proper use of CIFs.

“If you are in aid of legislation and want to legislate about confidential funds, you do not target one office and terrorize and torment the employees of that office,” stressed Duterte.

She said: “What you do is you do a sampling, a random sampling of the offices who have confidential funds.”

“What not call the Office of the President who has billions and billions of confidential funds if you want to legislate about the confidential funds,” she said. “So that shows that they’re singling out the Office of the Vice President. And I really feel that i’ts very disrespectful too the Office of the Vice President.”

Headed by Marcos’s cousin Speaker Martin Romualdez, the Lower House’s Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability has recently terminated its investigation into the CIF expenditures of the OVP.

As gathered from the Commission on Audit Annual Audit Report, the OP continues to be atop the expenditure ladder when it comes to CIF disbursements.

According to COA in 2023, Marcos’ office spent PHP2.25 billion and PHP2.31 on confidential and intelligence funds, respectively. The PHP2.45 billion total covered only that year.

Duterte defended her refusal to respond to questions about her CIF expenditures, saying that she is averse to answer the House members because the matter i”pertains to national security and the lives involved in intelligence operations.”

"In fact, two quarters of the Department of Education are already clearedf by the Commission on Audit, but it is still being questioned inside the committee in the House of Representatives. So that is the reason why I am not answering questions from the House of Representatives plus the fact that, as I said, it is an attack… It is a political attack,” she explained.