DAVAO CITY, Philippines – Vice President Sara Duterte may have been denied the P650 million confidential funds for 2024, yet her office will receive P 1.752 billion from the national budget to fund its socio-economic program delivery for this year.
The political blog Impact Leadership posted on its Facebook page that the vice president will receive nearly two billion pesos for its social services under the 2024 General Appropriations Act for 2024 or Republic Act 11975 approved by Congress late last year.
The Office of the Vice President (OVP) website lists nine programs under this budget. These are: Libreng Sakay, Public Assistance, Medical Assistance, Burial Assistance, Pagbabago Campaign, Rice Program, Mag Negosyo Ta ‘Day, “You Can Be VP” Program, and Pansarap Project.
The OVP has set up ten satellite offices to implement these programs, which are located in Davao, Zamboanga, Cotabato, Tandag in Mindanao; Cebu, Bacolod, Tacloban in Visayas; and Isabela, Dagupan, and Mandaluyong City in Luzon. Of the ten satellite offices, six (Dagupan, Cebu, Tacloban, Zamboanga, Davao, and Tandag) were established right after she started her term in July 2022.
The establishment of these satellite offices was flagged by the Commission on Audit in June 2023 for her office’s failure to follow procurement rules such as purchasing property and equipment for its satellite offices amounting to nearly P670,000.
In Duterte’s first full year in office in 2023, her socio-economic programs received P2.210 billion, including P500 million in confidential funds.
The VP’s budget this year is P500 million less than the previous year, as the allocation for confidential funds was denied by the House of Representatives due to public pressure when the opposition Makabayan bloc exposed the highly questionable allocation and use of her 2023 confidential funds.
Duterte’s budget for its socio-economic delivery program is higher than former Vice President Leni Robredo’s “Good Governance Program” from 2018 to 2022, which never exceeded P1 billion per year, Impact Leadership noted.
Robredo’s program started in 2018 with a P482 million budget and saw it increase to P635 million and P826 million during the pandemic years in 2020 and 2021. (davaotoday.com)
budget, duterte, sara duterte, vice president
