MANILA – Former President Rodrigo Duterte believes the impeachment case against his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio, is part of her destiny.
According to the former Chief Executive, it is Duterte-Carpio’s fate whether the Senate will go on to unseat her as the second highest elected official in the country.
“Kanya-kanyang suwerte ‘yan, naniniwala talaga ako diyan,” he added in an exclusive interview posted on SMNI News’ Facebook page on Tuesday morning.
“’Yung ibang issues, iba rin ‘yun. But for her to face judgment before her peers, iba rin ‘yun. Kanya talaga ‘yan, on her own,” said Duterte.
The former President also advised his daughter to just answer the allegations against her correctly when the impeachment trial begins at the Senate later this year.
“Sagutin lang niya kung ano ang tama,” former President Duterte said.
Duterte-Carpio was impeached by the House of Representatives on charges of “violation of the constitution, betrayal of public trust, graft and corruption, and other high crimes.”
The impeachment complaint stemmed from the House good government and public accountability panel’s inquiry on the use of confidential funds by the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) under Duterte-Carpio’s leadership.
The inquiry found that the two offices submitted acknowledgement receipts with wrong dates, signatories with no birth records, unnamed signatories and non-readable names of signatories to liquidate disbursed confidential funds to the Commission of Audit (COA).
It also found that the COA issued a notice of disallowance on the OVP’s use of P73 million confidential funds within 11 days in 2022. At least P69 million of the P73 million disallowed involved the following: P10 million for reward payment; P34.857 million for payment of reward (various goods); and P24.93 million for payment of reward (medicines).
The COA said the OVP did not submit documents showing the success of information gathering and/or surveillance activities to support the acknowledgment receipts for around P69 million of payments of rewards in cash, various goods, and medicines.
Likewise, COA said that P3.5 million of the disallowed P73 million “were used for payment for tables, chairs, desktop computers and printers without specifying that they were intended for the confidential operations/activities undertaken by the OVP, non-compliant with the requirement of Item 4.8.4 of the Joint Circular governing use of confidential fund.”
Duterte-Carpio, however, questioned the validity and constitutionality of the fourth impeachment complaint that was eventually transmitted by the House of Representatives to the Senate before the Supreme Court.
Aside from Duterte-Carpio’s petition, a group of lawyers also urged the High Court to issue a temporary restraining order against the conduct of the impeachment trial./PN
