DEPUTY Speaker Paolo Ortega V of La Union on Wednesday said Vice President Sara Duterte’s declaration that she is running for president in 2028 reinforces what the sequence of events has long indicated: her departure from the administration of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. was political repositioning — not a principled stand against corruption or inefficiency.
“The announcement removes any ambiguity,” said Ortega. “The distancing was not rooted in governance reform. It was part of a larger electoral trajectory.”
Ortega stressed that the turning point in the alliance was the controversy surrounding confidential and intelligence funds allocated to the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and previously to the Department of Education (DepEd) during her tenure.
“When Congress exercised its constitutional power of oversight and sought explanations on how confidential and intelligence funds were utilized, transparency became the central issue,” Ortega said.
According to the House leader, the Vice President repeatedly declined to provide detailed public explanations regarding the utilization framework, citing confidentiality.
“No one disputes the existence of lawful confidential funds,” Ortega said. “The issue was accountability — the duty to explain to the Filipino people how public money is safeguarded within legal parameters.”
Ortega noted that instead of addressing the substantive concerns raised during hearings, the conflict escalated politically.
“The timeline is clear. Questions were raised. Oversight mechanisms were activated. Instead of institutional engagement, we saw political disengagement,” Ortega said.
The confidential fund controversy later formed a principal component of the impeachment complaint filed against the Vice President.
“The impeachment process is constitutional. It is not political theater,” Ortega emphasized. “The complaint centered on alleged misuse and failure to properly account for confidential and intelligence funds — not on partisan differences.”
Ortega pointed out that the Vice President served nearly two years within the administration structure without publicly denouncing systemic corruption or incompetence.
“If corruption and inefficiency were the real reasons, those concerns should have been documented while she was inside the Cabinet,” ortega said. “Instead, the rupture coincided with fiscal scrutiny and institutional questioning.”
With her formal declaration of a presidential bid, Ortega said the political context has become unmistakable.
“Succession politics reshape alliances. That is reality,” Ortega said. “But let us not retroactively frame political repositioning as moral departure.”
The House leader concluded by drawing a distinction between oversight and political attack.
“Congress has the constitutional mandate to scrutinize public expenditures. Asking questions about confidential and intelligence funds is not harassment. It is governance,” Ortega said.
“If one chooses to run for President, that is a democratic right. But the public deserves clarity: the break from the administration was triggered by accountability measures — not by a sudden discovery of corruption or inefficiency,” Ortega said.
“The Filipino people can evaluate the facts. The chronology speaks for itself,” Ortega added.
