MANILA, Philippines – After establishing how, in over six months, the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) encashed P612.5 million in confidential funds, the prosecution panel in her impeachment trial opened on Monday, August 3, a new chapter and asked a new question: Were those funds spent on the right things?
From around 10 am to a few minutes shy of 2:30 pm, veteran lawyer Lorna Kapunan, private counsel for the House prosecution panel, probed state auditor Roderick Wamil over what the Commission on Audit (COA) had earlier flagged as shortcomings in how the OVP spent its confidential funds in the final quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023.
Kapunan and the prosecution are expected to tackle the last two quarters — the second and third of 2023 — when Duterte had access to confidential funds on Tuesday, August 4.
Wamil, who, by his own admission, felt “anxious” over having to testify before the impeachment court, was part of COA Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office (ICFAO) from September 2014 to February 2024, a decade that spanned three vice presidents and several education chiefs.
Under Kapunan’s prodding, Wamil put on record that it was only under Duterte that his office audited the OVP and DepEd, since predecessors former vice presidents Jejomar Binay and Leni Robredo, as well as previous education secretaries, had not been given access to confidential funds.
