A YouTube video claims that the House of Representatives threatened to have Vice President Sara Duterte arrested, and axed her office’s budget for 2025. This is not true.
There have been no such moves from Congress.
The false video was uploaded on Aug. 28, a day after Duterte attended a House committee hearing on the Office of Vice President (OVP)’s proposed spending plan for next year. Its headline read:
“TINAKOT NG KULONG! NAPUNO NA KAY VP SARA! NAPATAAS NA NG KAMAY DUTERTE! TINANGGAL ANG OVP SA BUDGET (Threatened with imprisonment! They had enough of VP Sara! Duterte has raised her hands! The OVP was removed from the budget)!”
There was no formal motion to cite Duterte in contempt and detain her during the Aug. 27 hearing. The lower house also did not remove the OVP’s funding for 2025. It only deferred its deliberations to Sept. 10 because Duterte refused to answer questions from lawmakers.
The vice president is in hot water over a Commission on Audit notice disallowing her office’s use of P73 million out of its P125 million confidential funds in 2022, which her office spent in just 11 days. She is also being questioned for requesting P10 million in public funds to print her self-authored book “Isang Kaibigan (A friend)” which has been flagged for factual and grammatical errors.
Throughout the budget proceedings that lasted for almost six hours, Duterte repeatedly said she will not defend her office’s budget:
“I would like to forego the opportunity to defend the budget in a question-and-answer format. I will leave it up to the House to decide on the budget submitted.”
Source: House of Representatives YouTube channel, “COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS – BUDGET BRIEFING/HEARINGS OF THE FY 2025 PROPOSED BUDGET (OVP),” Aug. 27, 2024 (1:32:14 to 1:32:28)
Duterte also said in the hearing that she chose to face the committee alone so her staff would not be involved should she be cited in contempt and placed in detention by the House.
In response, Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin asked the committee’s presiding officer, Marikina City Rep. Stella Quimbo, if anyone has been detained during budget hearings, to which Quimbo replied “never.”
Uploaded by YouTube channels Boss Balita TV (created on July 15, 2021) and BALITA NI JUAN (created on Aug. 16, 2021), the video garnered over 36,603 interactions.
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