BATASAN HILLS, Quezon City — Denying the allegations that she had solicited money from private companies while she was still an official of the Department of Education (DepEd), former undersecretary Gloria Jumamil Mercado hit back against her accusers, disclosing that Vice President ‘Inday’ Sara Duterte-Carpio tried to ‘influence’ her by offering ₱50,000 monthly in making decisions on the biddings conducted by DepEd’s Procurement Management Service and Bidding and Awards Committee.

VP Duterte-Carpio had earlier claimed that Mercado was “let go” from DepEd due to her involvement in the solicitation of ₱16 million from a number of private companies.

In reaction, the former DepEd undersecretary for human resources and organizational development and the agency’s Head of Procuring Entity (HoPE) clarified that the issue raised against her was actually an official government program that would have allowed the vice president, who was then DepEd secretary, to contact teachers wherever she may be.

According to her, the allegation that she solicited money from private companies was one of the reasons cited by Duterte’s chief-of-staff, undersecretary Zuleika Lopez, when she was asked to resign from DepEd.

“The second one is, Zuleika mentioned that I solicited from two agencies, so I explained to her that it was a program which our strand developed. There were two consultants from UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) to develop the app, and then we asked our external partnership office to look for external partners who will be presenting the program because we developed the concept,” Mercado cited.

Regarding the ₱50,000 monthly being offered to her from the vice president, the former DepEd official described the offered amount as a ‘means of influencing her’ even as she revealed that a total of nine envelopes labelled ‘HoPE’ and ‘50K’ was sent to her office from the Office of the Vice President (OVP).

“The envelopes were handed to me monthly by (former DepEd) assistant secretary Sunshine Fajarda, which she said came directly from . . . Vice President Sara Duterte,” Mercado told the House committee on good government and public accountability chaired by Manila District III representative Joel Chua.

This was denied, however, by Duterte-Carpio who dared the former DepEd official to show a paper trail of the supposed payoff even as she tagged Mercado as a ‘disgruntled former employee’.

“If she makes any accusations, she should have documents. Like me, if I would make any responses to them, I will provide the documents,” the vice president pointed out.