VP Sara asked to explain DepEd’s P112.5-million secret fund spending
VICE-PRESIDENT (VP) Sara Z. Duterte-Carpio could face a plunder suit if she fails to account for the Department of Education’s (DepEd) secret fund spending, when she sat as its secretary in 2023, a congressman said on Sunday.
Senior Deputy Speaker and Pampanga Rep. Aurelio D. Gonzales, Jr. said Ms. Carpio and another implicated Education official should explain the P112.5-million cash advances made in 2023 or risk a plunder case to be filed by the House of Representatives public accountability committee.
“If the Vice President, as head of DepEd at that time, cannot provide a clear and sufficient explanation of how this money was used, it is our duty to pursue the necessary legal actions, including a plunder case, to protect the public’s interest,” he said in a statement in Filipino.
A vice-president does not have legal immunity unlike the president, he added, which could open Ms. Carpio to legal suits.
The Office of the Vice President did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
An Oct. 17 hearing by the House good government and public accountability committee uncovered that the P112.5 million were encashed through three separate checks, each worth P37.5 million during the first three quarters of 2023, which Mr. Gonzales said already qualifies as plunder.
Plunder is committed when a government official acquires ill-gotten wealth amounting to P50 million through corruption, according to Republic Act No. 7080, the law defining and penalizing the crime of plunder.
The Education official who encashed the checks was subpoenaed by the panel, according to Mr. Gonzales, to determine whether the funds “were properly used or misappropriated.”
The Education department was allocated P150 million in confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) that year. DepEd said they requested the fund to address sexual abuse, illegal drug use, and recruitment to extremist causes of Filipino students, according to a Sept. 2022 statement.
Ms. Carpio resigned as Education secretary in June, the death knell to a once-formidable electoral alliance that delivered a landslide win for the Marcoses and Dutertes in the 2022 national polls.
Congressmen previously flagged Ms. Carpio’s secret fund utilization, including alleged irregularities on the Office of the Vice President’s P125-million CIF spending in 2022, which generated controversy among the public.
She denied the allegations, asserting “there was no misuse of funds” by her office. Ms. Carpio in response accused lawmakers of planning an impeachment against her. — Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio
