An aide to Vice President Sara Duterte told the Senate impeachment court on Wednesday, August 26, that he was personally insulted by Senator-Judge Raffy Tulfo’s suggestion that he was feigning ignorance on the witness stand.
Lemuel Ortonio, assistant chief of staff at the Office of the Vice President (OVP), objected after Tulfo criticized both his answers and his academic credentials during cross-examination on the 19th day of the trial. “Your honor, with all due respect, I personally took offense of that comment, Sir. I actually just did my duty, Sir. At the time, I believe po ‘yun po ‘yung kailangan kung gawin bilang isang empleyado po. And I did my work based on what was tasked of me, Sir. Including the limitations that I can do to the duty that I will be doing,” Ortonio said.
The senator had earlier told the witness that his responses were not credible and that his conduct on the stand undercut his schooling. “It defies logic. Hindi po kapani-paniwala ang mga pinagsasabi mo, Sir. For me, it really defies logic. Sayang po ‘yung pagkatalino mo rito. Nasira po ‘yung pagiging isang matalino mong tao. Nakakahiya po dun sa mga eskwelahan na kung saan ka nag-aral at nag-graduate because ngayon pinakita mo na nagsasalita ka na para kang, sorry Sir, nagtatangahan. Salamat po, Sir. Pasensya na po, Sir,” Tulfo said.
The friction grew out of Tulfo’s line of inquiry into why the OVP tapped its confidential funds to obtain medicines rather than securing them at no cost through the Department of Health. According to DZRH, the senator wanted to know why Ortonio never looked into which medicines were bought or asked for the corresponding prescriptions and receipts, checks that Tulfo argued were needed to confirm the money served its stated purpose and to close off any chance of misuse.
Ortonio’s response was that the choices behind how the confidential funds were deployed fell outside what he could speak to, telling the court he was not in a position to account for the “wisdom” of that decision.
Pressed on whether he had affixed his signature to documents without examining them, Ortonio rejected the characterization. DZRH reported that Tulfo pointed to the witness’s signature on the OVP’s reply to an audit observation memorandum and asked whether he had signed “nang nakapikit,” or with his eyes closed. The aide answered that he had consulted the office’s security officer about how the funds were released and carried out on the ground before signing.
The medicine question has surfaced repeatedly as prosecutors probe the OVP’s P500-million confidential fund allotment for 2022 and 2023. Ortonio testified earlier in the week that cash went straight to informants and agents who bought medical and food supplies themselves, an arrangement that produced acknowledgment receipts but no official receipts. Senator Erwin Tulfo had separately flagged that roughly P122 million in medicines were logged by the OVP as rewards for its informants.
Ortonio has served as the office’s assistant secretary and assistant chief of staff since July 2022 and was declared a hostile witness on Tuesday, the court having found that his coterminous appointment under Duterte gives him a stake in how the case turns out.
