After losing two days to inclement weather Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment trial continued for week 8 with Special Disbursing Officer Acosta once more taking the stand. Despite being tasked with handling Sara's confidential funds it appears that she was unqualified for the position.
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| https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1282497 |
Former Office of the Vice President (OVP) special disbursing officer (SDO) Gina Acosta on Monday said she did not know why Vice President Sara Duterte chose her twice to handle confidential funds as the House prosecution questioned her qualifications for the sensitive post.
Acosta served as SDO for confidential funds of the Davao City government when Duterte was mayor before taking on the same role at the OVP after Duterte became Vice President.
During redirect examination, House prosecution counsel Amando Virgil Ligutan zeroed in on Acosta’s educational background and lack of training in confidential operations after she handled PHP500 million in OVP confidential funds as an accountable officer.
Acosta, a hostile witness, said she earned a degree in customs administration from MATS College of Technology in Davao City and did not take a licensure examination.
She also acknowledged having no training in confidential operations, although she noted that the governing rules did not specify such training as a requirement for an SDO.
Ligutan then questioned why Duterte had picked her to handle confidential funds in both Davao City and later the OVP.
Seeing Acosta’s hesitation to answer, Presiding Officer Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero asked her: “If you have no training on confidential activities, why were you chosen as SDO handling confidential funds? Not only at the OVP but also in Davao.”
"I don’t know, Your Honor, why the Vice President chose me as SDO,” Acosta replied.
“In OVP and Davao?” Escudero clarified.
“Yes, in both, Your Honor,” Acosta said.
Ligutan then raised whether Acosta was repeatedly chosen because she would simply follow Duterte’s orders.
“Didn’t you become an SDO because you follow orders blindly?” Ligutan asked.
The defense objected that the question was argumentative.
After it was reformulated, Acosta was asked whether following orders was, in her view, the reason Duterte designated her SDO in Davao City and the OVP.
“I don’t know, Your Honor,” she replied.
Ligutan pressed further: “You cannot say because you follow all that was ordered to you?”
“I don’t know. I am just doing my duties as an SDO, Your Honor,” Acosta said.
Ligutan also challenged Acosta on whether an SDO entrusted with confidential funds should at least have “common sense” even if specialized training was not required.
“I have brains, Your Honor,” Acosta replied.
The questioning came after Ligutan confronted Acosta with Joint Circular 2015-01, which defines an SDO as the head of an agency or a regular employee designated by the agency head to be in charge of making confidential fund disbursements.
Acosta maintained that she was the one who disbursed the funds while Col. Raymund Dante Lachica, Duterte’s designated security officer, implemented the confidential activities.
“I disbursed the funds, not him. He just implemented it, Your Honor,” Acosta said.
Acosta earlier admitted releasing four PHP125-million cash tranches totaling PHP500 million in OVP confidential funds to Lachica from December 2022 through the third quarter of 2023.
Lachica was not fidelity-bonded, while Acosta remained the accountable officer for the funds. Acosta is the prosecution’s first hostile witness in Duterte’s impeachment trial.
That Sara picked her because of loyalty would explain why Acosta followed her orders despite knowing they were not lawful. Under oath she testified that she was aware Col. Raymund Dante Lachica was not bonded to handle the money yet she gave it to him anyway.
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| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/2290833/acosta-admits-handing-cf-to-lachica-despite-knowing-he-was-not-bonded |
Former special disbursing officer (SDO) Gina Acosta has admitted that she handed over the confidential funds (CF) under the Office of the Vice President (OVP) to Army Col. Raymund Dante Lachica even if she knew that the latter was not a bonded officer.
Acosta made this admission on Monday, during the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte at the Senate, when asked by counsel for the prosecution Amando Virgil Ligutan whether Lachica — former head of the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group (VPSPG) — was a “bonded official.”
Under Item No. 6.1.2 of the Joint Circular No. 2015-01 of the Commission on Audit (COA) and other government offices using CFs, cash advances for confidential and intelligence funds were “shall be drawn by duly designated and bonded SDOs or HoA (head of agency) for the implementation of a program, activity, and project chargeable to the corresponding CF.”
"We said that the reason why we need a fidelity bond is to protect the funds that the people worked hard for. Question, is the Col. Lachica who was given P125 million, plus P375 million, or a whopping total of P500 million- this is the people’s question to you, Gina Acosta- was he able to post a fidelity bond?," Ligutan asked.
"The security officer, Col. Lachica, as he is the commanding officer of the VPSPG, he is not a bonded officer your Honor, but the accountable officer remains to be me, your Honor. I am still the accountable person your Honor that’s why your Honor, I was the one who did the liquidation," Acosta replied.
SDOs handling confidential and intelligence funds are required to post bonds, or money which the government may use as replacement in case part of the allocations are accidentally lost.
In OVP’s case, Acosta posted the bonds as the SDO, not Lachica.Ligutan then asked Acosta whether she indeed ceded responsibility for disbursing CFs to Lachica every time OVP received the secret funds—for the fourth quarter of 2022 and the first three quarters of 2023.
"Now, isn’t it that for the three quarters of 2023, I’ll break the question down, you also gave P125 million para sa first quarter ng 2023 kay Col. Lachica, right?," Ligutan asked. "For the second quarter, P125 million to Colonel Lachica then, he is unbonded, you gave P125 million to Colonel Lachica, right?"
"That’s correct, Your Honor; he is the security officer who was designated by Vice President Sara Duterte to implement the confidential activities, Your Honor; he has access, Your Honor," Acosta said.
"It was released to Col. Lachica, Your Honor, because he was the one assigned by the Vice President because he is our security officer, Your Honor. He is the one who knows, he is the expert your Honor in implementing the projects or programs regarding the operation of confidential activities," she added.
After this, Ligutan noted that Acosta’s answers appeared repetitive, as she kept saying she gave the duty of disbursing CFs to Lachica.
Ligutan also pointed out that transferring the CF to Lachica may have prompted other violations since the military official was not an organic employee of the OVP.
Ligutan was referring to other provisions in the Joint Circular, particularly Item No. 6.1.1, which states that “under no circumstance shall” the CFs be “transferred from one accountable to another.”
Another provision, Item 6.1.6, also states that “no transfer of funds/appropriation through cash advances or any form of payment from one agency to another for purposes of confidential and intelligence activities shall be allowed.”
Last Monday, during her first day on the witness stand, Acosta admitted that she gave the duties of disbursing CFs to Lachica based on Duterte’s orders.
Acosta also testified this was the way it was done even during Sara's time as Mayor in Davao.
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| https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1282486 |
Former Office of the Vice President (OVP) special disbursing officer (SDO) Gina Acosta on Monday admitted following the same procedure in handling confidential funds in Davao City, including allowing recipients to take back documents acknowledging receipt of the money after liquidation.
The admission came as the prosecution traced Acosta’s handling of confidential funds from Davao City, where Vice President Sara Z. Duterte previously served as mayor, to the OVP.
House of Representatives prosecution counsel Amando Ligutan told the Senate impeachment court that Davao City was allocated PHP460 million in confidential funds annually from 2019 to 2022, or a total of PHP1.84 billion over four years.
Acosta, who served as SDO in Davao City before moving to the OVP, said she could no longer recall the amounts allocated to the city.
Ligutan later questioned Acosta about the procedure she followed in handling the OVP’s confidential funds, particularly the acknowledgment documents signed by Col. Raymund Dante Lachica when she released four PHP125-million cash tranches totaling PHP500 million to him.
Lachica was Duterte’s former OVP security head.
Acosta testified that Lachica signed an internal document acknowledging each cash release but later took it back after submitting a fund utilization report and the funds were liquidated.
“So, it’s no longer in your hands, it’s already in his hands?” Presiding Officer Senator Francis Escudero asked, referring to the acknowledgment document that Lachica signed for the first P125-million release.
“It’s no longer with me, Your Honor,” Acosta replied.
Escudero asked whether the same process was followed for the three PHP125-million releases in 2023, with Lachica signing upon receiving the money and later retrieving the acknowledgment after submitting his fund utilization report and the funds were liquidated before the Commission on Audit (COA).
“Yes, Your Honor,” Acosta said.
Ligutan then turned to Acosta’s stint as SDO in Davao City and asked whether the same procedure was followed there.
Acosta initially said she could no longer recall.
“I will have to recall, Your Honor, kasi matagal na po ’yun (that was already long ago),” she said.
Ligutan described the procedure as a “modus operandi,” prompting an objection from the defense.
Escudero cautioned against the term and reformulated the question.
“Counsel, we both know modus has a secondary and double meaning,” Escudero said.
The presiding officer instead asked whether this was the standard operating procedure Acosta followed as SDO in both Davao City and the OVP.
“Is this the common practice and process when you were the SDO of Davao with regards to confidential funds and when you were the SDO of the OVP?,” Escudero asked.
He described the procedure as releasing confidential funds to a security officer or another person who was not bonded, having the recipient sign an acknowledgment document, and allowing the document to be taken back after a fund utilization report was submitted and the funds were liquidated before COA.
"Yes, Your Honor,” Acosta replied.
In the OVP, Acosta testified that Lachica was not fidelity-bonded when she released four PHP125-million cash tranches to him from December 2022 through the third quarter of 2023.
“He was not bonded, Your Honor, but the accountable officer, Your Honor, I am still the accountable person, Your Honor,” Acosta said.
She said Duterte designated Lachica to implement the OVP’s confidential activities.
Acosta later admitted she had no personal knowledge of Lachica’s actual payments to the recipients listed in acknowledgment receipts and relied on him and the documents he supplied in accounting for the expenditures.
House prosecution panel spokesperson Robert Ace Barbers, meanwhile, said Acosta’s testimony ultimately strengthened the prosecution’s theory that Duterte personally directed the transfer of the PHP125 million confidential funds to Lachica.
Barbers said the testimony established a clear sequence of events: PHP125 million was withdrawn, Acosta physically received the money, and Duterte instructed her to turn it over to Lachica.
"This places the Vice President’s instruction at the center of the transaction," the former lawmaker said.
"What is important is that the accountable officer herself testified that she would not have made the transfer without the Vice President’s instruction. That is a direct link between the Vice President and the actual disposition of the funds."
The testimony also raised questions about Lachica’s authority to receive the money, Barbers also said, noting that Acosta’s answers indicated that Lachica was not the authorized SDO for the transaction, despite being the person to whom the PHP125 million was ultimately handed over.
According to Barbers, equally significant was Acosta’s admission that Lachica’s name did not appear in the documents submitted to the Commission on Audit to support the transaction.
"The person who allegedly received the cash was therefore not identified in the supporting documentation presented for audit," he said.
Both as Mayor and as Vice President the modus operandi was to release "confidential funds to a security officer or another person who was not bonded," have "the recipient sign an acknowledgment document," and allow "the document to be taken back after a fund utilization report was submitted and the funds were liquidated before COA." Those were Sara's instructions which places her at the center of the transaction.
On Tuesday another hostile witness was examined who testified that Sara did not sumbit a plan for the funds until after they were received.
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| https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/999750/ovp-requested-p250m-confi-funds-in-2022-submitted-spending-plan-later-witness/story/ |
The Office of the Vice President (OVP) Sara Duterte requested P250 million in confidential funds in August 2022 and submitted the corresponding spending plan almost a month later, OVP Assistant Secretary Lemuel Ortonio said Tuesday.
Ortonio made the confirmation during the direct examination of private prosecutor Mae Divinangracia during Day 18 of the impeachment trial of the Vice President.
"Yes, that's correct," Ortonio replied when asked to confirm that the Vice President signed off on the request for P250 million in confidential funds from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
"In the context of the plans and programs of the OVP, there has already been plans already at the beginning of the term of the Vice President in July of 2020," Ortonio said.
Ortonio, however, replied, "Yes, there were no attachments," when Divinagracia asked him if the OVP submitted the August 2022 request for confidential funds without a physical and financial plan attached to the letter.
Divinagracia then cited that the August 2022 letter only stated that the OVP committed "to formulate programs, projects, and activities relevant to national security and peace and order."
Ortonio thereafter confirmed that the OVP only submitted its physical and financial plan in support of its request for confidential funds to the DBM in September 2022, or 28 days after the original request was made.
Ortonio then said Duterte knew that he submitted the physical and financial plan to the DBM on September 19, 2022.
In addition, Ortonio said the physical and financial plan was also approved by the OVP on September 16, 2022, or three days before it was submitted to the DBM.
The Office of the President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr. eventually approved a P125-million confidential fund allocation for the OVP for 2022, which was released in December 2022.
In a press conference, House prosecution panel spokesperson Benjamin Tolosa, Jr. and Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Adiong said such a belated submission of the physical and financial plan makes the request suspect.
"What happened was putting the cart before the horse. They already requested money ahead of the submitting a plan how they will use it. Do they really have a basis for requesting P250 million worth of confidential funds to begin with?" Adiong asked.
"If you are asking for funding, you should have a plan how will you use it. The issue here is not whether or not the funding's release was delayed. The important question to be asked is, are these funds used for the purposes allowed under the guidelines," Tolosa added.
Of the P125 million confidential funds of the OVP in 2022, the Commission on Audit (COA) issued a notice of disallowance (ND) on P73 million of confidential fund disbursement.
An ND is issued when an expenditure is "either irregular, unnecessary, excessive, extravagant, or unconscionable" and orders the concerns agency to return such amount to government coffers.
Putting the cart before the horse indicates that Sara's spending plan was likely ad hoc.
This same witness testified that he paid 150,000 pesos out of his own pocket to cover Sara's excess expenses related to the confidential funds.
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| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/2291943/ortonio-confirms-paying-p150000-excess-cf-expenses-out-of-pocket |
Assistant Secretary and chief of staff Lemuel Ortonio confirmed Tuesday that he provided P150,000 out of his own pocket to cover the excess expenses under the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) confidential funds (CF).
During the 18th day of the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, Ortonio said he paid for the amount due to an urgent request from Col. Raymund Dante Lachica, the security officer who was said to “implement” the OVP’s confidential funds.
“This was raised to me by Miss Gina Acosta, our [special disbursing officer], and then she mentioned that there was a request,” Ortonio said.
This statement echoes Acosta’s testimony on Monday saying that it was indeed Ortonio who provided the difference, but Acosta clarified that she has no personal knowledge regarding where Ortonio got the money.
The P150,000 discrepancy was the amount flagged in the Commission on Audit (COA)’s Notice of Suspension (NS) on the OVP’s confidential fund utilization.
While the accomplishment report reflected expenses totaling P125 million which is equal to the cash advance of the OVP, the documents evidencing payments submitted to COA showed actual expenses amounting to P125,150,000.
When the NS was issued to the OVP, Ortonio initially told COA that acknowledgement receipts sent to liquidate the confidential funds may have been “inadvertently mixed with other documents.”
Nine days later, however, he submitted a supplemental reply clarifying that the P150,000 difference had been covered using his personal funds.“The reconciliation shows that an amount of P50,000.00 under Payment of Reward, and an amount of P100,000.00 under Purchase of Supplies, were provided by Assistant Secretary Lemuel Ortonio out of his personal funds, due to the urgency of the expenses,” his supplemental response read.
Meanwhile, Divinagracia pointed out that the P150,000 that Ortonio shouldered was just P40,000 shy of the OVP assistant chief of staff’s monthly salary of P180,000 to 190,000 as he worked under the Salary Grade 29.
Asked during trial whether it was common for the OVP to ask employees to shoulder expenses from their own pocket, Ortonio replied, “No, it’s not common.”
Divinagracia then questioned why he appeared to have forgotten the personal cash outlay when he replied to the NS.
Ortonio said he initially responded because they needed to submit a reply, but later provided a supplemental response after verifying the details to ensure that the information submitted was accurate.
“At the time, because of the urgency and because Miss Gina asked for help, I provided her with the request,” Ortonio said.
Divinagracia asked whether the OVP has records for Ortonio paying for the amount himself but Ortonio answered in the negative. He was also asked if it was ever paid back to him.
“Unfortunately Ma’am, I was not reimbursed anymore,” Ortionio added.
Ortonio claims employees shouldering expenses is not common but he does not explain exactly why he did it. Was it done on the fly to answer the COA's notice of suspension? Either way he stepped to cover Duterte's mess and he was not reimbursed for his trouble.
During her cross-examination of Ortonio, attorney Divinagracia was seen clutching a cross.
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| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/2291728/divinagracia-cross-gives-comfort-clarity-confidence-during-trial |
Counsel for the prosecution team Atty. Mae Divinagracia on Tuesday was seen holding a wooden cross as she did her direct examination of the witness during the 18th day of the impeachment trial against Vice President Sara Duterte.
But what is it for?
“For Comfort. It gives me confidence, clarity of mind, that’s how I feel when I’m holding it,” Divinagracia said in an ambush interview when asked the question.
Several netizens were posting about the said cross online, curious about what the lawyer was holding.
The wooden cross is often called a “comfort cross,” an asymmetrical cross ergonomically designed to be grasped in one’s clenched hand during prayer or difficult times.
The litigation lawyer said that the cross is something she always carries with her whenever she is at hearings and trials.
Essentially its a superstitious fetish she is grasping to give her comfort and clarity of mind while she works. Why is this allowed in a courtroom?
And now for the stupidest comment of the week courtesy of Seantor Padilla.
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| https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/nation/2026/8/26/padilla-likens-mary-grace-piattos-other-ovp-fund-recipients-to-national-heroes-1510 |
Padilla, during Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial, asked prosecution counsel Mae Divinagracia if she is aware that the country's heroes used aliases in the revolution against Spanish colonialism.
The ARs also bear surnames similar to some politicians, including a “Clarisse Hontiveros,” “Beth Revilla,” “Jose Diokno Jr.,” and two recipients with the surname “Lapid.”
Divinagracia, citing the Anti-Alias Law, stressed that the use of alias is allowed only if the individual's real name was disclosed.
She added that the circumstances the revolutionaries faced when the Philippines was a colony were different from the context of confidential funds, used for operations concerning national security.
Revolutionary figures like Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio and Apolinario Mabini used pseudonyms and code names to hide from Spanish authorities. The names on the acknowledgement receipts are supposedly informants for the Philippine government.
Senator Padilla argued: "Do we not have a war with the NPA (New People's Army)? The NPA has aliases."
Not only has it not been proven that any of those holding the aliases are real persons but the use of aliases in this context is illegal if their real name has not been disclosed. Also the prosecution has not claimed these names are aliases. Once more Senator Padilla has shown he has no business being a judge let alone a Senator.
