Sara Duterte foreign trips cost P7.4M for security, personnel deployment

Vice President Sara Duterte said Tuesday her office spent P7.4 million for the security and personnel deployed during her foreign trips.

Vice President Duterte made the response when asked by House Assistant Minority Leader and Kabataan party-list Rep. Renee Co during the hearing of the House appropriations committee on the proposed 2026 budget of the OVP.

“The total [OVP expenses] for nine trips for both the security and OVP personnel is P7,473,887.70 as of July 31,” Duterte said.

“[My] security [contingent] is always recommended by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, but [in] some trips [I] do not have OVP personnel because there are only three trusted OVP personnel who can do the work that I demand from them. And sometimes, they are not available,” she added.

The Vice President then said that her expenses for foreign travel was not charged to the OVP, unlike the case of her security and OVP personnel.

“No public funds were used for all my travels. I did not charge representation, I did not charge tickets, I did not charge per dime for all my travels in the Office of the Vice President,” she said.

“So if you can see, in the breakdown of the budget of travel for Office of the Vice President, you can see that there was a zero amount for the Vice President,” she added.

Duterte’s foreign trips since July 2024 per her account include:

• Germany in July 2024
• Denmark in December 2024
• Japan in January and February 2025
• Hong Kong and Netherlands in March 2025
• Qatar and Netherlands in May 2025
• Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Australia in June 2025
• Netherlands and South Korea in July 2025
• Kuwait, Netherlands, France, and Belgium in August to September 2025.

The Vice President’s father, former President Rodrigo Duterte has been detained in The Hague, Netherlands due to alleged crimes against humanity stemming from around 30,000 drug war killings during his term from 2016 to 2022.

Last Thursday, the OVP said it spent P20.68 million on its local and foreign trips as of July 2025, covering the expenses of Duterte's security and close-in personnel. 

In a press conference, OVP budget division chief Atty. Kelvin Gerome Tenido said that of the P20.68 million, a total of P13.207 million was spent for local travels, while P7.473 million was for foreign travels. 

During the budget hearing on Tuesday, Duterte refused to answer questions regarding confidential funds saying it is a subject of the impeachment case against her. —AOL, GMA Integrated News