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NewsTranscript
00:00We would like to invite the chairman of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability, Congressman Jowel Chua.
00:08Congressman Chua, good morning.
00:10Good morning, Egan and to all the listeners.
00:13How are you? The committee would like to hear from the PSA, maybe from the NBA or PNP,
00:19about the names of the recipients of OVP and DepEd, especially Mary Grace Piatos and now Kokoy Villamin.
00:29Yesterday, one of our colleagues, Congresswoman Pamela Zamora, moved in.
00:38Maybe within the day, our committee will coordinate with the PSA and NBI recipients.
00:51At this time, after listening to your committee, Congressman Chua,
00:58is it possible to say that the use of confidential funds by Vice President Sara Duterte is irregular or illegal?
01:09There are a lot of questions. We are looking for where the money went.
01:17What's saddening here is that yesterday, when we were preparing for the committee hearing,
01:22where the second highest official was appointed as the chief of staff of our Vice President,
01:32what's saddening here is that his function as chief of staff became very selective.
01:39Our congressmen cannot be trusted because the chief of staff is usually the one who supervises everything that's done.
01:50But when it comes to confidential funds, if he's not subject to it, he will not admit it.
01:56For example, he's saying that he has nothing to do with it.
02:00When he presented a letter where he signed that he will prohibit the COA from submitting pertinent documents subject to the subpoena due to STECUM,
02:15he said that it's limited and he didn't write it.
02:21When we asked him who wrote it, he said it was his deputy chief of staff, Ortonio.
02:28But when we asked him if he's a lawyer, he said no.
02:32But if you read the letter, it's very legal. How can a non-lawyer write such a letter?
02:39There are legal basis for it.
02:41It's hard to believe that a lawyer would sign such documents.
02:50Second, when we asked one of his officials who is preparing the budget for the OVP,
03:01he said that whoever he's getting information from, he's teaching them.
03:06He also said that his work is limited because there's a lot of budget, not limited to confidential funds.
03:14You can see here that the chief of staff is evasive in his answers.
03:21Vice President Sara is indignant that he will not participate in the hearing of your committee.
03:28What will be the decision of your committee here?
03:33Hopefully, by next week, we will wait because we have already issued a strict order to our Sergeant-at-Arms,
03:44to the police, to the NBI, to find the others, the SDO, the Special Dispersing Officer, Gina Acosta, my wife Faharda.
03:54By next hearing, we will not be able to get other resource persons.
04:00Maybe the members of the committee will discuss if we will proceed or if we will submit our committee report.
04:13Why are you not allowing him to be contempted, Congressman?
04:17The chief of staff was contempted last night.
04:21No. It's VP Sara.
04:23To be honest, we are extending all the courtesies to VP Sara.
04:29I don't agree with what she said that she will not be invited.
04:36In fact, we have invited her twice.
04:38But we believe that this committee hearing or when we heard about confidential funds,
04:48it was a venue for her to answer all the issues that were raised against her.
04:53Now, if she will not answer this, it's like she's waiving her right to answer the issues.
05:02In a normal process, when it comes to confidential funds, there should be an acknowledgement receipt?
05:09That's the only thing that's coming out now.
05:11That's the only thing that's coming out now.
05:13That's the only thing that's coming out now.
05:15The mere issuance of acknowledgement receipt is being accepted.
05:20That's why this is a bit sad because we have seen a lot of acknowledgement receipts.
05:30For example, the rental of safe houses, one million.
05:35But you will see in 11 days, one million.
05:38There's no detail.
05:40We don't know how big it is, where the location is and why it's that expensive.
05:46That's why this hearing that's taking place in the Chamber about this,
05:54we have a lot of laws that are being passed.
05:59At the end of the day, this is what we are doing in aid of legislation.
06:03Okay. Last one Congressman Chiu.
06:05Have you seen these violations as an impeachable offense?
06:11Or is this a direction to impeach VP Sara?
06:17If you ask me if there are grounds for impeachment, definitely there are.
06:22If this will proceed to impeachment, it's a very challenging question
06:31because we know our situation now.
06:34By next year, the campaign will start.
06:37So I don't know if this is possible.
06:43Thank you very much Chairman of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability, Congressman Joel Chiu.
06:49Be careful.
06:50Be careful as well. Thank you very much.