Angara rejects calls for his resignation

Education Secretary Sonny Angara on Wednesday dismissed suggestions that he should step down from his post after he was linked to the kickbacks derived from fund insertions during his time as chair of the Senate committee on finance.

Angara made the assertion following the resignations of several Cabinet officials. He said the claims linking him to the fund controversy are baseless and unsupported by any evidence.

“Hindi siguro, kasi hearsay lang yung nandoon sa akin. Tapos wala pang specific accusation, ’di ba? Walang mention of any transaction, so kung sa korte ’yun, ibabasura ’yun, ’di ba?” he told reporters.

(Probably not, because what was raised against me was just hearsay. And there’s no specific accusation. There’s no mention of any transaction, so if that were brought to court, it would be dismissed, am I right?)

In an ambush interview, Angara stressed that he sees “no reason” to resign, noting that no formal accusations have been made against him.

Angara served as Senate finance committee chair from 2019 to 2024, and shepherded the passage of the General Appropriations Act (GAA), the national budget, in those years.

As finance chair, Angara used to sit in the so-called "small committee" of the bicameral conference panel supposedly to reconcile the conflicting provisions of the Senate and House versions of the proposed budget measure for each year.

It is, however, in the small committee that most of the fund insertions were purportedly carried out.

In July 2024, he was appointed Secretary of the Department of Education (DepEd), just months before completing his second term as senator, replacing then-Secretary Sara Duterte.

Angara’s assertion comes amid heightened scrutiny of government officials on their alleged involvement in the corruption scandal involving public works projects, supposedly derived from fund insertions in the GAA.

In his testimony before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee investigating the fund scandal, former Public Works and Highways Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo implicated more personalities, including senators as supposed “proponents” of public works projects, supposedly in exchange for kickbacks.

In a supplemental affidavit, Bernardo named former senators Angara, Grace Poe, Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., and Nancy Binay as having allegedly received up to 25% of the project cost as part of the “commitment” (euphemism for kickback) from funding items inserted in the national budget.

On Monday, Senator Panfilo Lacson revealed that Bernardo provided him with details of how one of Angara’s senior officials in the DepEd, Undersecretary Trygve Olaivar, allegedly received kickbacks from anomalous DPWH projects.

Olaivar resigned from his post on Tuesday, the agency's media office said.

In his earlier testimony, Bernardo said he knew and had worked with Olaivar as early as 2010 when he was still a staff member of then-Senator Revilla.

Olaivar went on to work in the office of former Senate President Edgardo Angara, and later with then-Senator Sonny Angara, where he worked alongside former Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman.

Bernardo recalled several dealings with Olaivar between 2019 and 2024, with the latter allegedly receiving deliveries representing 12% of the projects supposedly for Angara as Senate finance chairperson.

Angara denied Bernardo's accusations.—MCG, GMA Integrated News