MANILA – President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. dismissed the claims of Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio that the House of Representatives is politicizing the hearing for the 2025 budget of the Office of the Vice President.
According to the Chief Executive, every government agency goes through the budget process as it serves as an avenue for legislators to gather relevant information as to how agencies use their budget.
“This is a budget hearing. This is something that every single government agency has to do. It’s a hearing, there’s no politics in it. We do it every year. That process is well established, it has nothing to do with politics,” Marcos said.
“It has to do with the budget, so I don’t know how can she characterized these things, which is essentially an information gathering exercise for the House and for the Senate, so that they know what the budget will look like. So malayo sa pulitika ‘yun,” he added.
Questions on the usage of OVP’s confidential funds in 2022 triggered heated discussions during the recent House Committee on Appropriations’ deliberations on the OVP’s proposed 2025 budget.
The Vice President claimed that administration allies are ganging up on her for raising several issues, including the OVP spending P125 million worth confidential funds in just 11 days in 2022.
Meanwhile, President Marcos also said he does not have communication with Duterte-Carpio since the latter tender her resignation from the Cabinet in June.
“The last time I spoke to her was when she handed me her resignation (as education secretary and vice chairperson of the government’s anti-communist task force). We haven’t spoken since,” Marcos said.
Marcos and Duterte-Carpio ran and won convincingly under the UniTeam Coalition in the 2022 national election./PN
