| Photo by Kevin Ku on Unsplash
During question-and-answer sessions about the 2025 budget for the Office of the Vice President (OVP), Vice President Sara Duterte and her office did not attend the second round of budget hearings, thereby feeding frustration among lawmakers and leading the House of Representatives to consider significant cuts to the proposed budget based on issues like mismanagement and disallowed expenses by the Commission on Audit.
Debates and tensions ensued between different political factions, with some defending the Vice President and others criticizing her absence and the handling of the budget.
One senator doubled down on a statement by a member of the House of Representatives that the tradition of allowing the Office of the Vice President (OVP) budget without objection should pre-empt any need for the Vice President to defend the office’s budget.
The 2025 insertions into the OVP budget revolve mostly around novel satellites and extensions that were non-existent in the history of the OVP. The proposed budget is now nearly 300% of the last budget year of the previous administration, which also saw the incumbent Vice President aspiring to be President. The satellite and extension offices purportedly facilitate social programs and financial aid delivery. This argument seems benign and, in fact, benevolent on the surface, except it also closely resembles politicking and a setup for a network of political hubs for elections in four short years in preparation for elections in 2028.
“For a country bereft of funding, where almost 25% of the national budget is borrowed money, are redundant programs belonging to another Executive Cabinet department necessary?”
This is after Php10M was also spent on questionable books for public schools, the same public schools that are in dire need of actual textbooks and in total ignorance of the Department of Education’s other needs in terms of classrooms, feeding programs, and reading and math education recalibration to improve PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) results for public school students.
To belabor the point, invoking tradition in the face of at least mismanagement and callous malversation, ignoring blatant electioneering, and at worst, contempt for the budgetary process, seems to the least knowledgeable of us, including this writer (sarcasm), a false and blind invocation of process over substance. For a country bereft of funding, where almost 25% of the national budget is borrowed money, are redundant programs belonging to another Executive Cabinet department necessary?
The worst tradition in the Republic of the Philippines, which prevails among the electorate, at least the majority that elects officials, is consistently electing officials and their families through generations despite persistent problems, including poverty. Why? Are these voters gluttons for punishment? Are you better off today than when you elected these officials?
A basic yet often forgotten lesson. Bayan Ko, Gumising Ka!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr. Crispin Fernandez advocates for overseas Filipinos, public health, transformative political change, and patriotic economics. He is also a community organizer, leader, and freelance writer.
