Government intelligence money is supposed to move under strict rules, but a member of the House prosecution team says records tied to the Office of the Vice President tell a story of money leaving the treasury faster than any legitimate operation could plausibly absorb it.
At the center of the argument is a leadership question, according to Lanao del Sur 1st District Representative Zia Alonto Adiong, who serves as the prosecution panel’s “layman” spokesperson. He framed the dispute not merely as an accounting irregularity but as a test of whether Vice President Sara Duterte honored the trust that comes with her office. “Can we trust the Vice President with the resources of the government, knowing that the policy, a very basic policy, hindi pa niya masunod given the fact na she is a lawyer and she has been using confidential funds for over three years now?” Adiong said.
To make the scale concrete, Adiong reduced the figures to an hourly rate. He noted that P125 million cleared the OVP’s books over an 11-day stretch, which he calculated to P473,000 spent for every hour of that period. “Kung i-quantify natin yung 11 days, P473,000 every hour ang nagagastos, para ma-consume, in 11 days, ang P125 million, ganun kabilis at kalaki yung paggasto ng P125 million in 11 days,” he said in an online interview, pointing out that the window also included holidays.
The money reached the OVP as a cash advance in December 2022, with disbursement logged from December 21 to December 31. Commission on Audit auditor Roderick Wamil had previously testified that the allocation was meant for the entire fourth quarter, which is part of why the compressed timeline drew scrutiny during the impeachment proceedings.
Adiong also raised doubts about the physical spread of the spending. He questioned how funds could have reached 134 locations across the country within the same brief period, calling it a claim difficult to defend under oath. “Meron pang pag-distribute nung confidential funds in 11 days, 134 areas all over the country in one day, so paano mo mate-testify ‘yun?” he said.
Another point of contention involves an OVP explanation that some obligations had been incurred before the money was released. Adiong argued that reimbursing prior expenses clashes with how confidential funds are supposed to work as cash advances tied to specific, forward-looking purposes. He maintained that such treatment is not permitted under the rules.
Governing procedure sits at the heart of the prosecution’s theory. Under Joint Circular No. 2015-01, an agency head is tasked with supervising confidential spending, keeping internal controls in place, and signing off on cash advances and liquidation reports, while a designated special disbursing officer handles the actual release and accounting of the money. Adiong contends the vice president’s tenure as Davao City mayor, where she also handled such funds, undercuts any suggestion that the requirements were unfamiliar to her.
That framing draws on the testimony of former OVP special disbursing officer Gina Acosta, who told the impeachment court that Duterte directed her to hand the cash over to a Colonel Lachica even though Acosta was the bonded officer accountable for it. Prosecutors argue the arrangement ran afoul of the circular. Adiong added that Lachica, by his account, signed nothing, which he offered as a reason the paper trail should carry more weight than later narratives from OVP witnesses.
The defense, however, has refused to concede the timeline the prosecution treats as settled. During an earlier phase of the trial, defense counsel Michael Poa declined to stipulate that the OVP received the P125 million on December 20, 2022, and drained it within 11 days, telling the Senate impeachment court there would be no agreement on that point. As reported by GMA News, Poa said the defense intends to cross-examine the prosecution’s witness and that the 11-day matter has an explanation it will present in court.
Not all of the spending timeline is contested, though. The Manila Times reported that OVP Assistant Chief of Staff Lemuel Ortonio confirmed on the stand that the confidential funds were fully disbursed within 11 days, explaining that the money was encashed on December 20, 2022 and had to be used by December 31 because it was tied to the closing quarter of that year. Ortonio also said he was unaware of any extraordinary threat that would have justified spending on that scale in so short a span.
The 11-day expenditure falls under Article I of the articles of impeachment, which accuses Duterte of misusing P612.5 million in confidential funds. Adiong argues that a failure to observe even a basic disbursement rule speaks directly to the constitutional principle that public office is a public trust, and that this principle, rather than any single receipt, is what the senator-judges are being asked to weigh.
