Budget season is closing in on the Senate, and its leader says the chamber’s purse can’t stretch to cover meals for the two panels arguing Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment.
Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian gave that assessment Thursday, responding to questions about a request from the Office of the Vice President that the chamber pick up the food costs of Duterte’s lawyers, ABS-CBN News reported. He pointed to the logistical demands of the appropriations hearings ahead as a reason the chamber cannot take on the added expense for either side.
The request that prompted the question came in a letter dated July 7 and addressed to him. It set out three conditions: meals served to the defense team, support staff, and witnesses only within their assigned holding room; sourcing, preparation, and service handled exclusively by a caterer accredited by the OVP; and the chamber absorbing what the letter termed the “reasonable costs” of those arrangements. Security was the stated justification. “To address legitimate security concerns and to provide the necessary level of assurance to all concerned personnel and witnesses, all food and beverage shall be sourced, prepared, and served exclusively by the OVP’s accredited caterer,” the letter said.
Fellow senators reached the same conclusion by a different route. Sen. Erwin Tulfo told reporters the majority bloc had settled the matter among themselves. “The majority agreed that it would not be proper for the Senate to foot the bill for their catering,” he said, noting each party is expected to shoulder its own administrative costs.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who chairs the committee on accounts, raised a procurement problem. The chamber already retains a caterer chosen through competitive bidding, and he argued that paying an outside supplier picked by another agency would be difficult to defend. “The Senate has our own caterer who went through the regular bidding process. This letter not only is asking the Senate to use only the OVP caterer but also pay for their services. This is the dangerous and highly questionable part. We can’t justify the use of Senate funds to pay another agency’s caterer,” he said.
Duterte’s counsel stayed at arm’s length from the correspondence. Defense spokesman Michael Poa said the letter originated with the OVP and that the legal team had no role in preparing it, directing further questions to the vice president’s office or the Senate Secretariat.
Senate Secretary Renato Bantug had earlier described a related inquiry as routine. On July 10, he said Duterte’s chief of staff, Zuleika Lopez, had asked about bringing in equipment and a caterer for the defense holding area — an arrangement he noted the prosecution had already made for itself.
