Vice President Sara Duterte had billion of pesos in transactions that were flagged by banks to the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), despite declaring official income and net worth way below her bank records. For certain years, she failed to declare her cash on hand and cash deposits in her statements of assets, liabilities and net...
Tag: confidential funds
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Ramil Madriaga’s story of service and betrayal
Explosive allegations were made against Vice President Sara Duterte and her father by a man claiming to be her former aide and bagman at the resumption of the impeachment proceedings conducted by the House justice committee on Tuesday. Ramil Madriaga was occasionally overcome by emotion as he read aloud a supplemental affidavit that he swore...
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House justice committee votes to summon Vice President’s documents
The House of Representatives’ committee on justice voted on Wednesday to summon witnesses and documents it deemed necessary to determine “probable cause” to bring Vice President Sara Duterte to trial at the Senate impeachment court. Among the documents are the findings of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in its probe into Duterte’s threat in...
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2nd plunder complaint filed against VP Duterte, this time by Trillanes and civil society group
Former senator Antonio Trillanes IV and the civil society group The Silent Majority (TSM) have filed a plunder and malversation complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte that could feed a fresh impeachment case against her, alleging that she misused ₱650 million in confidential funds and received bribes from a suspected drug lord when she was...
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Once more unto the breach with the scandal du jour, even with thinning reserves of hope
What does the current spasm in the body politic over the latest manifestations of corruption indicate but that the more things change, the more they remain the same? It wasn’t too long ago when such types as “Pogi,” “Sexy” and “Tanda” were hogging the news, having been accused of receiving ₱224.5 million, ₱183.8 million, and...
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Five things to watch out for in the 20th Congress
1. Vice President Sara Duterte’s trial: Will it finally happen? The next round of the Marcos-Duterte family feud was expected to play out in Congress. But the Dutertes scored a win—and the possibility of a reprieve until February 2026, or even longer—in Friday’s Supreme Court ruling that temporarily banned an impeachment trial. The Marcos-controlled House...
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Sara’s impeachment trial, Baste’s boxing bout, and the (worsening) floods of our lives
Vice President Sara Duterte and her younger brother, Acting Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte of Davao City, have managed to evade confrontations of their making. The Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that the verified impeachment complaint transmitted by the House of Representatives to the Senate in February is unconstitutional, providing the Vice President a reprieve from...
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Hontiveros: Senate should adopt House realignment of secret funds
The Senate can do “no less” than adopt the House of Representatives’ realignment of P1.23-billion in confidential funds in the proposed P5.768-trillion national budget for 2024, Sen. Risa Hontiveros said on Wednesday. “The House has taken the first step institutionally. So I think we in the Senate can do no less because we actually started...
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When public money is spent confidentially
The Office of Vice President Sara Duterte has denied her involvement in the recent disruption of traffic on Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City purportedly to allow her convoy to pass unhampered. By then the video showing all sorts of vehicles at full stop on the busy avenue had, in the common parlance, gone viral, accompanied...
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What to Know: Are confidential funds secret funds not subject to audit?
The use of confidential funds (CF) by the Office of Vice President Sara Duterte, concurrently the secretary of education, continues to be in the news and in social media posts. While most of the comments dwell on the P125 million in confidential funds supposedly spent in an 11-day period in December 2022, among the other...