The ongoing impeachment proceedings against Vice President Sara Duterte have reached a point where it is no longer just about politics. It’s about the Filipino people’s time and money.
Because she refused to give direct answers, Congress has to spend more time, hire more people and hold more hearings just to get to the bottom of the truth. Her refusal to cooperate has turned a serious investigation into a long, drawn-out waiting game.
While the vice president has the right to defend herself, dodging key questions is hurting the country. Had Duterte answered the allegations point-by-point from the start, we wouldn’t be in this mess. If she is innocent, the evidence would have cleared her name months ago. If there were mistakes, they could have been addressed.
This pattern of avoiding accountability didn’t start with the impeachment. It began during the 2025 budget hearings, where the public saw a historic and frustrating breakdown in government cooperation.
When a leader is accused of something, the quickest way to end the drama is to provide clear answers. But instead of explaining where the money went, the vice president’s camp has focused on questioning the “rules” and the “authority” of Congress. This move hasn’t ended the issue; it has only dragged it out, perhaps until the 2028 elections, so she can use the issue to portray herself as a victim.
In August and September 2024, the vice president shocked the public by refusing to answer basic questions from lawmakers. Instead of explaining how her office spent its P1.87 billion allocation in 2024 and the P125 million confidential funds from the contingent fund in December 2022, and how it planned to spend the P2.04 billion proposed budget for her office in 2025, she repeatedly told lawmakers she would “forego the opportunity to defend the budget,” essentially telling Congress to just do whatever they wanted with it without her input.
When she appeared at the Committee on Good Government in an inquiry on allegedly anomalous transactions in the Office of the Vice President, including the disbursement of P125 million confidential funds within 11 days, Duterte refused to take the standard oath to tell the truth, arguing she was a “resource person” and not a witness.
When the discussions became tough, she simply stopped showing up, leaving the OVP budget with no one to defend it.
The most serious allegations raised against Duterte involve the P612.5 million in confidential funds handled by the OVP and the Department of Education under her watch.
When the House good government committee started an investigation into the millions of pesos flagged by the Commission on Audit in the OVP and DepEd budgets, lawmakers found “acknowledgment receipts” for the money that were highly suspicious. Some were signed by people who don’t seem to exist, with names like Mary Grace Piattos, Fernando Tempura, Chippy McDonald, Beverly Claire Pampano, and more than a thousand others, which the Philippine Statistics Authority said have no record of birth, marriage or death.
But the strategy from the OVP has been consistent: question the jurisdiction, attack the integrity of the proceedings, and characterize the inquiry as a political circus.
A direct response, substantiated by records and clear explanations, could have achieved one of two things: It would have either exonerated her quickly, allowing the nation to move on, or it would have sharpened the focus of the trial to specific, triable facts.
And who’s footing the bill for these? The taxpayers, no less. Every day that Congress spends on the impeachment proceedings is a day they aren’t working on things that actually matter to ordinary Filipinos.
The most immediate casualty of this strategy is the national budget. Running an impeachment trial is not a low-cost endeavor. It costs millions to conduct these hearings, money that could have gone to basic social services, health or education. While lawmakers are busy debating whether they have the right to ask questions, they are not passing laws to lower the price of rice, fix the transport system, or create better jobs.
The sheer man-hours of congressional staff, security and administrative support required to maintain these proceedings are immense. Investigating allegations that are not being clarified by the respondent requires hiring external auditors and investigators to piece together a puzzle that the vice president holds the key to.
In a democracy, people elect leaders to serve them. Part of that service is being honest about how public funds are being used. Using legal excuses to avoid answering questions might work for a private citizen in a courtroom, but it does not work for a vice president.
If the allegations are truly lies, then the truth should be easy to tell. By refusing to answer the allegations directly, Duterte is making the process longer, more expensive and more exhausting for everyone.
She just can’t dismiss all issues raised against her as politically motivated. There are questionable reports and receipts that originated from her office that need to be explained. Monies appropriated to her office have to be accounted for. Those were not deposits to her personal ATM account that she could spend however she wanted to.
If the allegations are truly “baseless” and “politically motivated,” as the vice president claims, then the most effective weapon in her arsenal should be the truth. Providing a line-by-line accounting of the funds in question would do more to dismantle her “enemies” than any jurisdictional challenge ever could.
The Filipino people are tired of this game. We deserve a resolution. We cannot afford a three-year trial that serves as a backdrop for the 2028 elections while the business of the country remains in limbo. We are facing high prices and daily struggles; we don’t have the luxury of waiting years for a simple explanation about where millions, maybe billions, of pesos went.
The vice president should stop the excuses and face the issues directly. She has a moral and civic obligation to maintain the confidence of the electorate. She must realize that her refusal to speak is the loudest statement she has made thus far. It is a statement that suggests the proceedings are beneath her, or perhaps that the questions are unanswerable. The longer she stays silent, the more the country pays the price. It’s time to give the people the answers they deserve so the government can get back to work.
Answer the questions, Madame vice president. The meter is running, and the public can no longer afford to pay for your silence.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
This column also appeared in The Manila Times.
