Militant lawmakers in the Makabayan bloc are not impressed by Vice President Sara Duterte’s academic credentials — and said so bluntly on Wednesday, April 16.
The response came after Duterte issued a statement defending her law school record, pushing back against testimony delivered to the House Committee on Justice by detainee Ramil Madriaga on Tuesday. Madriaga had alleged that Duterte struggled academically during her time in law school.
Duterte disputed the claim: “I graduated in May 2005 and took the Bar Exam in September of the same year — something that had not been done before at SSC-R (San Sebastian Recoletos) College of Law until my time. The exam that year was relatively difficult. I passed the Bar on my first attempt with a GWA (general weighted average) of 80, five points above the minimum.”
She further stated that she “never asked any professor for special accommodation for my grades because the bare minimum was easy enough to meet.”
ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio, Gabriela Party-list Rep. Sarah Elago, and Kabataan Party-list Rep. Renee Co were unmoved. “We are not concerned with academic records or law school transcripts,” the three said in a joint statement.
Their bloc’s attention, they said, is fixed elsewhere: “What we — and the Filipino people — demand are clear answers on how P612.5 million in confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) were used, accounted for, and whether these served legitimate public purposes.”
“Hindi rekord sa eskwelahan ang usapin. Ang dapat ipaliwanag niya ay ang P612.5 milyong pondo ng bayan. Nasaan ang liquidation? Nasaan ang mga dokumento? Nasaan ang malinaw na pananagutan sa bawat pisong kinuha sa kaban ng publiko? Yun ang dapat nyang sagutin,” the Makabayan said.
The alleged misappropriation of those confidential funds sits at the center of two active impeachment complaints against Duterte, which the Committee on Justice is currently evaluating for probable cause. The Vice President did not appear at Tuesday’s proceedings.
