The Office of the Vice President maintained its nonchalant stance on the fate of its proposed budget in the House of Representatives with head of office Vice President Sara Duterte declaring no interest in defending their proposed 2025 budget during the scheduled plenary deliberations on Monday (September 23).

Duterte appeared resigned to the threat of Lower House allies of Speaker Martin Romualdez that the OVP budget will be slashed from the original P2.03 billion to just P733 million.

The amount reduced is expected to be transferred to medical and social assistance programs that congressmen can access for their respective congressional districts.

“As communicated to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and to the Chair of the Committee on Appropriations, the OVP has duly submitted all the required documents to the Committee pertaining to its budget request for the upcoming year. Furthermore, a comprehensive overview of our proposals was presented during my presentation on 27 August, 2024,” said Duterte in a letter sent to Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong, vice chair of the House committee on Appropriations who was tasked to defend the OVP budget.

She added: “ In consideration of the foregoing, the OVP leave es the deliberation of our budget proposal in the plenary entirely to the pleasure of the House of Representatives.”

The OVP sent the letter on September 11, the same day that Duterte released a tape recording of her office’s position to the threat to reduced its allocation for 2025.

In the tape recording, the vice president stressed that her office is prepared to work even without budget.

Previous to this, Duterte snubbed a second appropriations panel hearing on her budget, prompting the committee’s decision to remove P1.29 billion from the OVP budget.