{"id":6543,"date":"2026-08-06T04:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T03:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/?p=6543"},"modified":"2026-08-06T04:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T03:42:09","slug":"sc-gives-sara-a-stinging-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/?p=6543","title":{"rendered":"SC gives Sara a stinging loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Diego Morra<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By squelching Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio\u2019s plea for the Supreme Court (SC) to junk her impeachment trial before the Senate, the high court ruled simply that the issue raised has become moot as the proceedings are underway. The relief, in short, is like a ship that has sailed. This bit of news is but one in a series of misfortunes on Aug. 5, when two senators performed badly in a bid to shore up the sinking ship of Sara.<\/p>\n

The SC ruling on the consolidated petitions filed by Sara Duterte and lawyers led by Israelito Torreon stressed that \u201cany ruling on the validity of the actions taken by the House and its Committee on Justice would no longer affect the controversy.\u201d Moreover, the tribunal argued that it found no basis to grant the prayer of the Torreon petition to declare the unconstitutionality of the impeachment proceedings at the time in the House of Representatives. Effectively, the court would no longer consider additional petitions from the parties.<\/p>\n

At the Senate itself, Sen. Imee Marcos raised issues on who should be held responsible for the huge withdrawals of the confidential fund (CF) for both the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) that Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio both headed. The argument was that it was not Sara who withdrew the money but Gina Acosta and therefore she cannot be held liable for misusing or stealing the cash. The same held true for Edward Fajarda, who was the special disbursing officer (SDO) designated by Sara at DepEd.<\/p>\n

It was a nice attempt to present the SDOs as fall guys, even if it has no legal leg to stand on. Both Acosta and Fajarda testified at the Committee on Justice hearing at the House of Representatives that they gave the money to Sara\u2019s security officers upon her orders, despite the fact that the same military officers were not SDOs and are barred from disbursing, delivering and remitting the money to designated beneficiaries.<\/p>\n

Sen. Robinhood Padilla, aside from questioning where his favorite witness, Roderick Wamil, studied and lived and whether he had been to the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) or not, also delivered a devastating theory— that Sara\u2019s CF prevented attacks by terrorists and New People\u2019s Army (NPA) guerrillas. Call it Padilla\u2019s prescience but it has also not been established that Sara or her surrogates actually \u201cstopped\u201d the recruitment of high school kids for the armed struggle. Putting the cart before the horse is ugly at ang pilit na lohika gamit ang pilipit na impormasyon ay hindi magbubunga ng maganda. For Padilla\u2019s edification, the NPA was formed on March 29, 1969, not in December of any year he fancies.<\/p>\n

Other senators were more sensible as they zeroed in on the possible violations of COA rules by Sara and her underlings. For failing to properly liquidate her CF expenses, Wamil said Sara was liable. For failing to submit receipts and invoices to COA for evaluation, Wamil answered that she was also liable. For issuing mere acknowledgment receipts (ARs), she was likewise liable. In sum, she committed errors that cannot be cured. For which reason, COA demanded that she return P448 million to the government and another P73 million. All answerable with \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno,\u201d the questions were clear, not meandering, and took the bull by the horns.<\/p>\n

Wamil said that in his experience, Sara\u2019s OVP was the first government agency that refused to receive an Audit Observation Memorandum (AOM) from COA. The flimsy excuse was that there was no authorized person to accept it. It was unusual, he told Sen. Francis Pangilinan. A day earlier, Wamil told the Senate that OVP chief of staff Zuleika Lopez and Michael Poa, then Department of Education (DepEd) chief of staff and spokesperson, met with officials of the Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office (ICFAO) in September 2023 after auditors found deficiencies in the agencies\u2019 confidential fund submissions. Lopez and Poa, now a Duterte defense lawyer, asked whether COA could issue a mere audit query instead of an AOM. Joint Circular No. 2015-01 does not provide for an audit query as an audit action.<\/p>\n

Senators also noted unusual patterns in the OVP\u2019s liquidation documents for confidential funds covering Dec. 21 to 31, 2022. The ARs produced in evidence reflected only whole-number figures and COA records showed 111 disbursements totaling P17 million on Dec. 23, 2022. This was a record in daily disbursements, COA affirmed, indicating haste in dispatching money. In one of her many statements, Sara justified the quick payments inasmuch as the OVP would be compelled to return the balance of her CF in the event she fails to dispose the P125-million by the end of the year. Thus, the \u201cchichirya\u201d informers, the duffle bags of cash and the busy special delivery boys. If Sara cannot produce even the shadows of the beneficiaries, the law presumes that she pocketed the people\u2019s hard-earned cash.#<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Diego Morra   By squelching Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio\u2019s plea for the Supreme Court (SC) to junk her impeachment trial before the Senate, the high court ruled simply that the issue raised has become moot as the proceedings are underway. The relief, in short, is like a ship that has sailed. This bit of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6484,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editoryal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t