VICE President Sara Duterte yesterday backed President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s order for a lifestyle check on government officials but said it will not be enough if a thorough investigation to weed out corrupt public officials will not be undertaken.
She said the lifestyle check should also cover appointed officials.
The President on Wednesday ordered a lifestyle check starting with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) as part of anti-corruption moves by the administration amid mounting allegations of irregularities in flood control projects.
“The investigation should not be only on the surface, that we will say is written on the SALN (statements of assets, liabilities and net worth. It should be a deep dive… The dummy of public officials should be revealed),” Duterte said in mixed Filipino and English during an interview in The Netherlands where her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, is detained for alleged crimes against humanity.
The vice president said Marcos should also investigate other public officials as she alleged that the president turned a blind eye when congressmen divided among their districts the budget of the Department of Education (DepEd) for its school-building program under the 2024 national budget.
Duterte, who resigned as education secretary in June last year, said even Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito asked about the issue during budget hearings last year. She said the President has to expand the investigation to cover other potential cases of graft and corruption if he is really serious about cleaning the government.
“But when he told the President, and BBM knew about it, he had no reaction. So it raised suspicion, why we suddenly have an investigation into flood control projects,” she said in Filipino.
She said lawmakers did not even request the DepEd for school building budget because they inserted it in the House-approved version of the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) which later became a law, the General Appropriations Act of 2024.
“Pinaghati-hatian na ng members of the House of Representatives, pero walang nag-react. Hanggang ngayon, walang nagsasalita, walang nag-iimbestiga. Hindi lang naman flood control e (It was divided among members of the House of Representatives but no one reacted. Until now, no one is talking, no one is investigating. It’s not only about flood control),” she said.
The Vice President said she would rather not offer a “free” unsolicited advice to the administration on how to fight corruption.
“Let’s just watch them in their zarzuela. Corruption, corruption but they’re only going after flood control when the government has a lot of projects, not only flood control,” she said.
Marcos has so far identified 15 contractors that secured nearly 20 percent of the P545.64 billion allocated for flood control from July 2022 to May 2025. About 20 percent of all projects, valued at roughly P100 billion, went to these contractors — five of which had projects in nearly all regions.
PULONG’S FLOOD CONTROL BUDGET
Reacting, Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante Jr. challenged the Vice President to provide proof against lawmakers, saying “she should realize that Congress has all the right to scrutinize the budget, because we have the power of the purse, whether it be the Senate or the House.”
“We’d like some evidence to be shown, and I would like just the VP to realize that the budget that we have to scrutinize is only submitted to us, and that is the right of the Congress to do (amend the budget) that,” he said in mixed Filipino and English at a press conference.
Abante also ridiculed Duterte’s younger brother, Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte, for casting doubt on the administration’s seriousness in fighting graft and corruption in public works projects, saying he should also take a hard look at allocations made to Davao City during the Duterte administration, especially in the district of his elder brother, Davao City Rep. Paolo Duterte.
“My suggestion is for Mayor Baste to ask his brother congressman how much funds Cong. Pulong get when his father was still president? How much did he get?” he said.
Abante said Rep. Duterte should reveal the amount and where the “billions” of funds were spent because floodings still occur in their city.
Abante, who supports the President’s order for a lifestyle check, said the mayor should prove whether his claim that the ongoing investigation into flood control projects is a mere stunt is true or not.
Last year, the House Committee on Appropriations in the 19th Congress, which was then chaired by Rep. Zaldy Co (PL, Bicol Saro), said it was verifying social media posts that Duterte received P51 billion in district allocations in the 18th previous Congress.
The lawmaker’s district was reportedly allotted P13 billion in the first year of the 18th Congress, P35 billion in the succeeding year, and P13 billion in the third year.
HOUSE PROBE
Rep. Terry Ridon (PL, Bicol Saro), chair of the House Committee on Public Accounts, said he sees no problem if the lifestyle check would cover members of Congress and the Judiciary.
“I think the call of course of the President is for all, pero but I’m also quite that he also wants to respect the co-equality of the branches of government,” he said.
Ridon, whose panel is among three House committees set to jointly investigate anomalous flood control projects next week, or the “infra comm,” said he understands the public expectation that all government officials and employees “should be able to lead and live modest lives.”
Ridon said the infra comm, which will start its investigation on Tuesday, has invited resource persons, including SIMS Construction Trading, said to be the contractor of “ghost” projects in Bulacan, and the other contractors earlier identified by President.
Batangas Rep. Leandro Leviste on Wednesday night named his predecessor, Eric Buhain, as the “big fish” in the alleged corruption of public works funds in his district.
Leviste said the revelation was based on information given to him by Abelardo Calalo, who was relieved as engineer of Batangas’s first district after he was arrested for a bribery attempt on Leviste.
“What I’ve heard, the DE (district engineer) told me is that the one who selected the winning bidders for the DPWH project in the first district of Batangas was the congressman I replaced,” he said in Filipino during an interview.
“The big fish really here is the district congressman,” added Leviste who has filed a complaint against Calalo for allegedly attempting to bribe him in exchange for stopping his investigation into anomalies hounding infrastructure projects in his district.
Buhain is the husband of former Rep. Eileen Ermita, daughter of former executive secretary Eduardo Ermita who served under the Arroyo administration.
The former congressman, a known competitive swimmer in the 80s and 90s, lost to Leviste in the midterm elections last May.
