MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Sara Duterte does not believe that the budget of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) under her term should be compared with that of former Vice President Leni Robredo, alleging that her predecessor failed to ask for a “fair budget” during her years in office.
On Tuesday, during the House appropriations committee’s hearing on the OVP’s proposed P2.037 billion budget for 2025, Duterte addressed a number of non-budget issues that the OVP has faced in recent months.
This includes the number of security personnel that have been assigned to Duterte, which her critics, including House lawmakers, say far outnumber those assigned to past vice presidents.
“It is my belief that it would be a stretch, if not absurd, to compare the budget of my immediate predecessor to the present budget proposal,” Duterte said in her opening statement.
“We do not have personal knowledge as to why she did not request for a fair budget for her projects,” the vice president said.
Robredo dealt with numerous attacks from former President Rodrigo Duterte during her six-year term and had admitted herself that she was the “most vilified” government official in the country in 2018. Several of the insults and accusations the former president hurled against her were sexist while others were outright false.
The highest budget allocated to the OVP under Robredo was in 2021, when it received a P900 million allotment.
The combined total of funds granted to Robredo 2017 to 2022 — which amount to some P3.9 million — is smaller than the total OVP budget Sara has received in just two years of office (P4.2 million).
Sara also clarified that past vice presidents were assigned a protection team that drew its members solely from the Vice Presidential Security Detachment.
The vice president said that during her term, several defense and security agencies, including the Philippine National Police (PNP), made legal issuances for the creation of two security groups staffed by police personnel and soldiers, respectively.
“It must also be clarified that the number of security personnel is not determined by the OVP. We are mere recipients of the security personnel detailed to the office,” Sara said.
There are no more PNP personnel assigned to the OVP at present, she added.
In an open letter earlier this month, Sara said the pullout of the 75 PNP personnel from her security detail was a form of “political harassment” and a “targeted maneuver” as the cops removed from her detail were also long-time personnel who had her “trust and confidence.”
In 2022, 433 personnel served in Sara’s security and protection group, a 455% increase from the 78 detailed military personnel assigned to Robredo during her last full term in 2021, according to the Commission on Audit’s report.
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