Palace on probing VP Sara’s use of confi funds: Up to Ombudsman

Malacañang on Tuesday said it is up to the Office of the Ombudsman to investigate Vice President Sara Duterte's use of confidential funds from her office from 2022 to 2023.

“It’s in the hands of the Office of the Ombudsman,” Palace Press Officer Undersecretary Claire Castro told reporters when asked for comment on the appeal of a group for the Ombudsman to look into the matter. 

Opposition coalition Tindig Pilipinas has urged Ombudsman Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla to investigate Duterte’s use of P625 million in confidential funds from the Office of the Vice President from 2022 to 2023.

GMA News Online reached out to the Vice President's camp for comment but has yet to receive a reply as of posting time.

To recall, Duterte was impeached by the House of Representatives in February due to allegations of misuse of P612.5 million worth of confidential funds as well as threatening to kill President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr., among other reasons.

A House good government and public accountability panel probe earlier revealed that the OVP had liquidated its confidential fund allocation in 2022 to 2023 with acknowledgement receipts containing wrong dates, signatories with no birth records, unnamed signatures, and non-readable signatories, among others.

The Vice President has since denied the accusations against her. 

The Supreme Court has ruled in July that the impeachment case against Duterte violated the one year bar-rule and the due process by including at least seven new requirements for an impeachment complaint to be considered above board, conditions that were not present when the House impeached the Vice President.

Remulla had said that the findings of the House committee on good government and public accountability on the confidential funds spending by the Vice President are useful information.

Remulla said he has yet to read the letter of the opposition group, but assured that his office will act accordingly.—AOL, GMA Integrated News