December 10, 2024
Manila – The road is long and uncertain for those seeking to remove Vice President Sara Duterte through impeachment, but impeachment is by no means a means of holding accountable the P612.5 million allegedly abused under her leadership The only way to keep confidential funds accountable.
The reality is that impeachment is more than a constitutional tool for holding high-ranking officials accountable for misconduct. Many times, it becomes a bargaining chip for partisan or financial interests; in other words – a political tool. But the allegations against Duterte are fraught with public interest and require a legal response and possibly a judicial reckoning.
This leads to an apparent paradox: Why must Congress seek a political remedy for a fundamentally criminal problem? More importantly, why must an alleged waste of taxpayer funds be dictated by the whims and agendas of politicians?
As our history shows, impeachment has its uses and merits, but it is a double-edged sword that one must use with great caution.
The highest betrayal
The two impeachment charges against the vice president last week took very different approaches to removing the nation's second-most powerful official. The first complaint, filed by civil society leaders and relatives of victims of the drug war, employed a completely unworkable tactic and leveled a series of charges against Duterte, invoking every possible possibility short of treason. grounds for impeachment. The second, filed by progressive activists, chose to zero in on one of them — betrayal of the public trust — as it focused on the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) P125 million spending spree of confidential funds on December 11, 2022.
Among other things, both complaints raised questions about P375 million and P112.5 million in unaccounted expenditures in 2023, respectively, from the OVP and the Department of Education (DepEd)’s unauditable secret funds during Duterte’s tenure.
Most striking among the allegations are the striking similarities to other funding scams, such as the P10-billion pork barrel scam masterminded by Janet Lim-Napoles, one of the country’s largest A poster boy for corruption currently serving a prison sentence for multiple convictions.
ghost beneficiary
In a wide-ranging conspiracy involving top lawmakers and officials, Naples was accused of masterminding the diversion of congressional appropriations to phantom projects with false beneficiaries and was found guilty in some cases, including of looting.
Similar questionable dealings have emerged in Duterte's funding dispute, including the bizarre cases of Mary Grace Piattos and Kokoy Villamin, who were both listed Be a signatory to OVP and Ministry of Education receipts used to clear their respective expenditures.
The Philippine Statistics Authority has since confirmed suspicions that Piatos and Villamin did not exist, at least in their birth, marriage or death records, and the agency is now checking hundreds of other signers. Duterte's response to congressional inquiries with obstructionist tactics and contempt has only added to the suspicion surrounding Duterte's use of public funds.
Let us not forget that classified funds are used to address pressing national security issues. The fact that two civilian agencies, the OVP and the Ministry of Education, even received these funds reflects a serious shortcoming and misalignment of public spending. Like the pork barrel scam, the Duterte scandal illustrates the dangers of the intertwining of political and economic interests in the budget process and the lack of strong oversight mechanisms when such allocations are used.
Misusing the Peso
But as President Marcos suggested when he said impeaching Duterte was “a waste of time,” the stakes are too high to be dismissed as a partisan squabble.
Instead, the House and Senate must take decisive action on impeachment complaints to avoid being seen as enablers of malfeasance. If anything, their inaction will make the House investigation a meaningless spectacle. As former Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño said: “[This] The impeachment complaint is a challenge to Congress to demonstrate its independence and show that it can side with the people.
It's too early to say whether the president's stance dooms Duterte's chances of impeachment, but there is precedent for the House and Senate to defy the president's line.
In either case, her critics should know that impeachment is not the only way to hold Duterte accountable — and the vice president is not immune from criminal prosecution.
Whether in trial courts or in the halls of Congress, the government has a duty to uncover every ghost beneficiary, hold every misused peso accountable, and punish every erring official. Failure to do so would be a failure of justice and a betrayal of the public trust that Duterte is accused of violating.
