MANILA, Philippines — Senator-judge Panfilo "Ping" Lacson on Wednesday flagged what he described as "copy-paste" programs in the Office of the Vice President's regular budget and in its Confidential and Intelligence Funds (CIF).
During his interjection at the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, Lacson said it was "stupid" to "copy-paste" or use virtually identical program descriptions and physical targets for its regular budget and CIF.
"The same descriptions are repeated. You are an intelligent person and witness, what do you make of it? Very simply, how would you analyze these kinds of descriptions? Isn't it an insult to common sense? If it were OVP security officer Col. Raymund Dante Lachica who prepared this, he could at least have differentiated them," he said.
Lacson cited figures from the 2022 and 2023 General Appropriations Act and compared them with the OVP's physical and financial plans (PFPs) for its CIF.
The figures showed that in 2022, the OVP received P621.6 million under the General Appropriations Act (GAA) and P125 million in CIF in the fourth quarter of 2022 for its "good governance program."
In 2023, the OVP received P2.21 billion under the GAA and P500 million in CIF - P125 million each quarter - for its "socio-economic program delivery."
Lacson also said that in its 2022 and 2023 PFPs, the OVP listed as its physical targets the "number of identified areas with surveillance conducted and monitored" and the "percentage of activities implemented without untoward security-related incidents."
"First, in the regular program, you could have changed the nomenclature when you got to the CFI in the PFP. Then under the 'Physical target' column, you could have at least changed the activities. It's copy-paste," Lacson said.
"I think it's stupid to 'copy-paste' the program descriptions and physical targets of the regular budget and CIF. You could have at least differentiated them a little," he added.
Lacson later made it clear that his use of the word "stupid" referred to the descriptions and nomenclatures of the Programs, Activities, and Projects (PAPs), PFPs and physical targets, rather than to any person.
"I did not refer to a person but to the descriptions or nomenclatures of PAP’s, PFP’s and physical targets, so I and the presiding officer agree that there’s nothing wrong and offensive," he said.
Meanwhile, Lacson raised the possibility of having the documents covering the CIFs subpoenaed so the senator-judges can see if there are real persons who received reward money as informants under cover of aliases, relative to the PFPs.
We senator-judges are still wondering if the aliases referred to real people. Did these people receive reward money as informants? Just so we can end our guessing and make an informed decision, we need to see the documents relative to the PAPs, the PFPs, and the expected outcome," he said.
Lacson also asked impeachment court Presiding Officer Francis Escudero if the documents can be subpoenaed. Escudero answered that "the court can avail of that power" at the appropriate time.
"There is a presumption the funds were used properly but there's still that doubt that we cannot remove, because there are so many issues that came out during the trial. And we want to be satisfied. After all, we will be deciding what is right and wrong, on the basis of evidence," he said.
