(Editor’s Note: Thumbnail Image was created using Google Gemini.)
Grant Sara Duterte the understanding of her insecurity that her score sheet as education secretary was abysmally dismal. The very low numbers come from the Commission on Audit for 2023 – unassailable. Of the 6,379 classrooms on target, she completed only a microscopic 192 (3.01%); for the repair of 7,550 classrooms, she completed only 208 (2.75%); for building 88 last mile schools, she completed only an infinitesimal 3 (3.41%).
And so when she appeared at Kamuning Bakery forum, she had to window-dress her do-nothing performance in the Department of Education – of course of all things – by lying. She was in a good mood because Kamuning’s proprietors gave her stardom status. The stage was set for her to impress that she knows her way to good governance, which however, is not the same as plucking an idea out of thin air.
The context of the day was too tempting for her to ignore – the corruption scandals that have triggered massive outpourings on the streets. It was an opportunity to hitch her star to it. Yet to twist the forthcoming street rallies to sympathize for a Duterte would be next to impossible.
Clouded by her burning ambition, she does not see that, of course. And what better way to anchor her premise than to say that the Marcos Jr. government was selective on the corruption probe.
Then she segued to what she thought was a bright idea — why not investigate the anomalous laptop deal of the Department of Education? See, she plucks ideas out of thin air devoid of analytical skills. The DepEd laptop mess is no longer a bright idea. In July this year, the Ombudsman ordered the filing of graft and falsification charges against Rodrigo Duterte’s Education secretary Leonor Briones and fourteen other officials who signed on the deal.
But that wasn’t the bombshell yet, or what she had thought was one. She thought she would shock the world by saying that —
“Kung talagang seryoso ang Ombudsman sa pag iimbestiga, imbestigahan din nila yung laptop corruption scandal ng Department of Education. Nandoon si Zaldy Co at alam ko yun dahil gumawa kami ng sariling investigation sa loob ng Department of Education noong ako ay Department of Education secretary. (May I say) na merong confidential funds na pumunta doon sa paghahanap . . . ahh . . . ng ebidensya sa imbestigasyon na yun.”
Question from the audience: “Alam mo na may involvement . . . si Zaldy Co doon sa laptop?”
Sara: “Sunwest ang contractor.” And then she thought the earth would shake.
Two points to summarize: First, that it was she who discovered that the supplier was Zaldy Co. Second, that she did not use her confidential funds for any anomaly, including the possibility of plunder. Reminder for context: past secretaries of the DepEd, a non-security and non-surveillance agency, never had confidential funds.
The following day, one national daily blared the headline: “Sara Duterte finally reveals how DepEd confidential funds were spent.” Exactly how she wanted the narrative to be. Some of our media publications do not write the hard facts. Very parochial.
If this was her shocker, take note that previously, Sara had said that she used her DepEd confidential fund for intelligence and surveillance work on illegal activities targeting students. Her bizarre explanation was, education is intertwined with national security. It is on record that she had never said anything about Zaldy Co’s laptops.
What is the truth? Knowing that the contract was awarded to Sunwest is no longer a bombshell. That information was already known publicly when the DepEd issued a Notice of Award for the project “Supply and Delivery of Laptop Computers for Public School Teachers for the Department of Education” (reference number PN 21-074-7) on June 30, 2021. This is verifiable in the website of the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS).
Lest we forget, on June 30, 2021, Sara was still in Davao City sustaining her father’s Davao Death Squad killings and enjoying her P2.6 billion confidential funds from 2016 to 2022.
The fact is that the Notice of Award (NOA) makes the results of a bidding public. It is issued by the procuring entity, in this case the DepEd, to the winning bidder. The procurement agency, the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management which manages PhilGEPS, then posts the notice on the PhilGEPS website for public information. Before she became vice president, it was already known to the whole worldwide web that Zaldy Co’s Sunwest won the bidding.
In fact, the name and address of the winning supplier that won the bid is contained in the Notice of Award. Government certainly had full information on the identity of the winning supplier organization’s incorporators, as an accredited entity in PhilGEPS. The winning bidders were a joint venture of LDLA Marketing and Trading Inc., VST-ECS Philippines, and Sunwest Construction and Development Corporation.
That was her grand Kamuning lie. There is no need to use confidential funds to determine who the winning bidder was. Besides, DepEd files would easily yield that information without the need for P150 million of confidential funds.
When she was already at the helm of DepEd, she could have easily gone to the Securities and Exchange Commission to ask for the names of the incorporators of Sunwest as listed in its Articles of Incorporation – without costing P150 million. For example, the key executives of VST-ECS Philippines can be searched on the web as Jimmy Go (president and CEO), Maurice Altar (VP for Marketing and Communications) and Cherry Centeno (1st VP and Group General Manager).
But there is another gaping hole in the Sara “disclosure.” Like the Pharmally mess before it, the overpriced and substandard laptops were priced at the time that the executive director of the PS-DBM was the Bong Go trusted aide and appointee Lloyd Christopher Lao of Davao City. He had then just resigned when the Notice of Award was issued because of his association with the Pharmally corruption mess.
Did Sara determine Lao’s involvement from her “investigation”? She did not say. Now who is being selective by omitting Lao who was already connected to her father before he became president?
Sara’s lie is caught, and it is as grand as the bogus receipts for Mary Grace Piattos.
On her order for an “investigation” on the laptop scandal when she had assumed the DepEd leadership, she mentioned asking the Commission on Audit (COA) for a fraud audit. In fact, what she had done was only order an undersecretary to write a letter to the COA asking them to conduct a fraud audit on the overpriced and outdated laptops.
Her undersecretary Epimaco Densing III announced the request in a press briefing on August 15, 2022. The letter was addressed to then COA head Jose Calida who used to be the father Duterte’s attack dog as solicitor general. Densing said they had requested the PS-DBM for all the pertinent documents and which the DepEd then forwarded to Calida.
Their problem was not that Zaldy Co’s Sunwest won the bidding. There was no mention of Zaldy Co because of course they did not do their homework on who was behind Sunwest. Instead, Densing spoke of a different concern – that “for future procurement, we will do our procurement service here at the DepEd.” And then the clincher — the PS-DBM, which by then had a new executive director (Dennis Santiago), announced that it was the National Bureau of Investigation that was tasked to do the investigation.
Take two, Sara. Another grand lie caught.
Sherlock Holmes would have done his divination of tea leaves. With Sara, there is no need. And that is because she lies – her topsy-turvy facts are nowhere near concurrence. At Kamuning Bakery, she was reaching out for popular acclaim. She failed big time. Not even the bakery’s pan de sal could have saved her.
Sara makes the wrong mistakes because she lies. Her lies are expensive as her outlandish confidential funds of P150 million.
In honor of Sara Duterte, the Oxford English Dictionary must now include “budol” as a new word entry.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
