The 2027 spending plan of the Office of the Vice President carries a P51-million line for travel, a figure that drew questions from lawmakers during House deliberations even as the agency’s overall proposal cleared committee scrutiny with little friction.
Pressed on the item at the September 2 hearing of the House Committee on Appropriations, OVP officials explained that the money is not meant to fund the movements of Vice President Sara Duterte herself. Instead, according to newswatchplus.ph, the allocation covers OVP staff and portions of the expenses tied to her security detail.
OVP Director Rosalynne Sanchez told the panel that much of the travel is program-driven, pointing to the office’s outreach in far-flung communities. “We go to last-mile schools, GIDA (geographically isolated, disadvantaged, and conflict-affected areas), so we incur substantial travel expenses to implement our programs,” she said, per newswatchplus.ph.
The scrutiny came after Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Sarah Elago asked the office to account for what it had already laid out on travel in recent years. In reply, Sanchez said the office worked with a P56-million travel budget in 2025. “The total budget for 2025 is P56 million. Out of that, we have spent P12.9 million for foreign travel and P32.5 million for local travel. The amounts mentioned earlier covered the travel expenses of all OVP personnel as well as some expenses of security personnel,” she said.
That P56-million level held steady across two years, matching the amount set for the office under the 2026 General Appropriations Act. The P51 million now being sought for 2027 therefore represents a reduction of roughly P5 million from the current ceiling.
Travel spending sits within the office’s Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses, which make up the bulk of the request. Of the proposed P785.2-million total budget, MOOE accounts for P561.6 million, followed by Personnel Services at P235.7 million and Capital Outlay at P3.3 million, according to the Inquirer.
Members of the panel did not simply take the numbers at face value, asking the office to submit a fuller accounting of its travel costs stretching back to 2023.
The proposed budget was presided over by Palawan 2nd District Rep. Jose Alvarez, vice chairperson of the appropriations committee. The overall figure marks a drop of 11.7 percent from the P889.2-million budget the OVP carried for 2026, as reported by the Daily Tribune.
Notably, the 2027 proposal contains no request for confidential or intelligence funds — the third straight year the vice president’s office has left such allocations out of its submission, the Daily Tribune reported, following the disapproval of her P500-million confidential fund request during deliberations on the 2024 national budget.
