September 12, 2024 | 6:23pm
MANILA, Philippines — The House appropriations committee proposed to reduce the rent and lease expenses of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) by about 60% from the requested P80.732 million, a House leader said on Thursday, September 12.
The rent and lease expenses of an agency are being used to fund the maintenance and operations of the OVP’s offices.
“So we decided to revert it to the 2022 levels, where our vice president at that time only maintained a single office,” Rep. Stella Quimbo (Marikina, 2nd District) said in a mix of English and Filipino at a press conference.
“In the end, if this is the amount of lease available to them, and they were expecting P80 million. But, for example, they only received P32 million, they will have to make do with that,” she added.
Before 2022, the OVP only had one office. It was when Vice President Sara Duterte began her term on July 1, 2022, that her flagship project to establish satellite offices for the OVP was launched.
The OVP’s satellite offices were built to extend its social services program, which includes burial, medical and calamity assistance, across the country.
In 2023, the Office of the Executive Secretary said that the OVP had utilized P125 million in confidential funds charged against the 2022 contingent to establish these offices. The transfer of funds was approved by the Office of the President.
RELATED: Palace: Confidential funds sent to OVP were used for new satellite offices
What did other lawmakers say?
During the budget deliberations of the OVP’s proposed 2025 budget, lawmakers raised on Tuesday their concern over the office’s average annual use of P53 million, as revealed in the reports of state auditors, to maintain its 10 satellite offices and two extension offices.
They argue that the purpose of these offices is a “duplication” of other line agencies such as the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
According to the Commission on Audit (COA), the OVP used this amount to pay for the rent of these offices, as well as other properties and equipment. It is allowed under procurement law, the agency said.
Meanwhile, another lawmaker reminded the committee how the monthly rental rate of former Vice President Leni Robredo’s office was about P345,744.
For a year, this sums up to roughly P4.15 million, and this is merely 7.8% of what the OVP under Duterte has been spending for its offices.
Quimbo, however, pointed out that the OVP under Robredo had only one office, compared to the more than 10 offices under Duterte as vice president.
“It came out during our hearings that there are 10 satellite offices and two extension offices, and this is likely the reason why lease expenses reached P53 million, which is significantly higher compared to previous vice presidents,” she said in a mix of English and Filipino.
The vice chairperson of the House appropriations committee reiterated that this is just the lower chamber’s proposal to slash the OVP’s request of P2.026 billion to P733.2 million is not final.
A bicameral conference with the Senate will also be held to finalize the government budget for different agencies. Plenary debates in the House of Representatives for the General Appropriations Bill will begin on September 16.
The OVP’s budget will be deliberated again on September 23.
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