MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Education (DepEd), then concurrently headed by Vice President Sara Duterte, repurposed a routine Philippine Army certification to support a separate ₱15.54-million confidential-fund claim, House prosecution spokesperson and Lanao Del Sur 1st District Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong said Tuesday.
In a briefing at the sidelines of Day 20 of Duterte’s impeachment trial, Adiong noted that the certification only confirmed that the Army’s 1st Infantry “Tabak” Division conducted eight Youth Leadership Summits and 53 information education campaign activities in 2023.
It did not identify an informer, document a reward payment or show that DepEd confidential funds financed the activities.
“Only one conclusion can be drawn from the testimony of Colonel (Manaros) Boransing: the AFP was duped,” the lawmaker said in Filipino.
Boransing testified before the Senate impeachment court that his certification issued January 1, 2024 was a routine record of the division’s activities with other stakeholders. He said no DepEd funds were released or downloaded to his division for the events and that he only learned during an October 2024 House hearing that the agency had used the document in its response to the Commission on Audit (COA).
DepEd attached Army certifications to its April 17, 2024 response to COA Audit Observation Memorandum No. 2024-015, which sought documents supporting ₱15.54 million in rewards reportedly linked to successful information-gathering or surveillance.
“The certificate only proves that there was a summit that was conducted. It did not prove anything as to the utilization of confidential funds. It did not prove anything that the reward was made during that event,” Adiong said.
Meanwhile, Tingog Party-list Rep. Jude Acidre said using the certification as liquidation evidence could amount to misrepresentation because it did not establish that the office of the Secretary of Education directly spent funds on the Army activities.
“A certificate—which did not imply that the Office of the Secretary of Education had incurred a direct expense—was used as evidence for liquidation,” he said.
Acidre said the discrepancy warrants broader scrutiny of the confidential-fund trail under Duterte.
“If there was even a single instance of misrepresentation by the Office of the Secretary of Education during Vice President Sara Duterte’s tenure regarding the liquidation of confidential funds, that raises even more questions,” he said.
