MANILA – Four officials of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) have been cited in contempt for once again skipping the ongoing House of Representatives inquiry on the alleged fund misuse of OVP and Department of Education during the time of Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio.
The four were Lemeul Ortonio, Gina Acosta, Sunshine Fajarda, and Eduard Fajarda.
House Deputy Speaker Jayjay Suarez motioned for the subpoena after learning from the Committee Secretariat that the four ignored the panel’s invitations thrice and the subpoena ad testificandum five times.
“This (timeframe) is beyond what the committee would normally allow,” Suarez said during the resumption of the inquiry on Monday morning.
Suarez added that the contempt order against the four OVP officials also carries a detention order at the Batasang Pambasa Complex in Quezon City.
The Bureau of Immigration previously issued an immigration lookout bulletin order against seven OVP officials, including Ortonio, Acosta, and Fajardas.
The four were also among the seven OVP officials who earlier submitted a position paper saying they would decline to attend the House good government and public accountability committee’s continuing investigation into the agency’s budget utilization.
In their position paper, they pointed out the right to decline the invitation, saying officials and personnel of the OVP were invited to attend in their capacity as resource persons.
“All things considered, we reiterate our previous position in the case of Calida v. Trillanes that ‘persons invited to appear before a legislative inquiry do so as resource persons and not as accused in a criminal proceeding. Thus, they should be accorded respect and courtesy since they were under no compulsion to accept the invitation extended before them, yet they did so anyway. Their accommodation of a request should not in any way be repaid with insinuations,'” the position paper read.
“We are guided by this ruling of the Supreme Court in that invitations from the Committee may be declined, and that we have the right to respectfully refuse to participate in the proceedings,” it added./PN
