The Office of the Vice President (OVP) failed to send any representative to its scheduled budget hearing at the House of Representatives on Friday, once again drawing criticism from lawmakers.
Palawan Rep. Jose Alvarez, vice chair of the appropriations committee, explained that he advised the OVP not to attend after the agency said only an assistant secretary would defend its proposed budget. “We saw that their (assistant) chief-of-staff, Lemuel Ortonio, was not an undersecretary-level officer,” Alvarez said, stressing that tradition requires either the agency head or at least an undersecretary to face the panel. He added that Vice President Sara Duterte has committed to personally attend the hearing on Tuesday, September 16.
The absence did not sit well with ACT Teachers party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio, who argued that parliamentary courtesy should no longer shield the Vice President from scrutiny. “Yes, it’s a tradition but […] we should do away with that tradition. Why? Because first, our history shows that the so-called presumption of regularity cannot suffice because the norm has to be that government officials should always be ready to explain things, especially on the budget,” he said.
Tinio insisted that Duterte must respond to key questions on her office’s spending, including issues surrounding confidential funds, foreign trips, and the mysterious figure “Mary Grace Piattos,” whose name reportedly does not appear in government civil registry records.
This is not the first clash between the OVP and the House over budget accountability. In 2024, Duterte appeared at an initial hearing but refused to answer questions directly, leading lawmakers to cut her office’s P2.037 billion allocation. She later skipped follow-up deliberations and failed to send any official during plenary debates, causing further delays.
The last time Duterte was seen in the Batasan complex was in November 2024, when she holed up in her brother Davao Rep. Paolo Duterte’s office while her chief of staff Zuleika Lopez faced a contempt citation. That episode ended with a fiery online rant in which the Vice President lashed out at President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and Speaker Martin Romualdez.
