The Commission on Audit on Aug. 8 released a disallowance notice for P73 million of the Office of the Vice President’s P125 million confidential fund in 2022.
A notice of disallowance (ND) notifies the agency head and/or accountant to return disallowed confidential or intelligence expenses due to illegal, irregular, or improper use, per Joint Circular (JC) 2015-01 (Guidelines on the Entitlement, Release, Use, Reporting, and Audit of Confidential and/or Intelligence Funds).
A Nov. 30 TikTok video by yanbat2021, however, erroneously claimed that COA has cleared Vice President Sara Duterte’s office of the confidential fund controversy. The text overlay reads:
VP SARA DUTERTE 125M CONFIDENTIAL FUNDS - Cleared by COA
This is not the first time this claim has been made. Rappler previously fact-checked the same claim from a Sept. 28 YouTube video.
During the Aug. 27 budget hearing of the House appropriations committee for the OVP’s proposed budget for 2025, party-list Rep. France Castro read an excerpt of COA’s Aug. 8 notice:
According to the ND, the COA disallowed P73,287,000 out of the P125 million confidential fund used by the OVP in 2022. So this is 58.63% of the P125 million.
A copy of the ND obtained by Rappler states that disallowance was due to nonsubmission of documents “to support the Acknowledgement Receipts for payments of rewards in cash, various goods, and medicines” totaling P69,787,000 million. According to COA, these include:
Reward Payment: P10,000,000
Payment of Reward (Various Goods): P34,857,000
Payment of Reward (Medicines): 24,930,000
Payment of rewards to informers or non-employees of the agency, requires supporting documents proving the success of the information or surveillance provided as stated in section 4.8.5 of the JC.
COA rejected the OVP’s response that reward payments for various goods and medicines are not “rewards” but “supplies,” emphasizing that the two expenses are separate and distinct. The ND explains:
If the expenses were intended as purchase of supplies, the same should have been reflected in the acknowledgment receipt as supplies not rewards, considering that Management [OVP] submitted acknowledgement receipts reflecting payments for purchased supplies.
Also included in the disallowed P73 million was the P3,500,000 payment for tables, chairs, computers, and printers charged to the confidential fund without specifying that they were for the OVP’s confidential activities.
Duterte, special disbursing officer Gina Acosta and chief accountant Julieta Villadelrey were found liable for the transactions.
The House committee on good government and public accountability has been investigating the alleged misuse of the P125 million confidential fund.
In the Nov. 5 hearing, lawyer. Gloria Camora of COA’s Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office confirmed Rep. Rodge Gutierrez’s observation that some acknowledgement receipts were either undated or dated 2023 but submitted for 2022.
“Based on our study, 158 of the acknowledgement receipts have that typographical error,” Gutierrez said.
Camora read the OVP’s compliance stating the reason for the errors:
Considering the nature of confidential activities which are usually conducted discreetly and completed within a short period of time, and in addition to the lack of attention to details of personnel attending to voluminous papers from several individuals, some data in the acknowledgement receipts submitted as proof of transactions may have been missed.
The TikTok video, released amid the Marcos-Duterte political rift, has reached 565,600 views, 39,200 likes and 5,100 comments as of writing. (IA)