{"id":6579,"date":"2026-08-13T08:19:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T07:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/?p=6579"},"modified":"2026-08-13T08:19:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T07:19:11","slug":"sara-paymasters-multilocality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/?p=6579","title":{"rendered":"Sara paymaster\u2019s multilocality"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\ud83d\udcf7\"<\/span>: Edward Fajarda, former special disbursing officer (SDO) of the Department of Education ( (Photo courtesy of House Press and Public Affairs Bureau)<\/em><\/p>\n

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

The August 11, 2026 hearing on the impeachment trial of Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio showed a flood of acknowledgment receipts (ARs), disbursement vouchers (DVs) and physical and financial plans (PFPs) on the use of confidential funds (CF) that failed to pass muster the stringent rules of the Commission on Audit (COA), rendering the expended cash to have made its way to the pockets of the head of office of the Department of Education (DepEd), Sara herself, based on COA policy.<\/p>\n

Worse, the DepEd CF largesse was disbursed on the same dates but in various locations across the country, Sara cannot feign innocence about the contents of the documents that DepEd had submitted. She swore to the correctness of the 1,080 ARs to support the liquidation of the disbursements by the department in response to COA\u2019s 2024 Audit Observation Memorandum (AOM) for the first and second quarters of 2023. She approved all the disbursements, attested to the veracity of the liquidation and affirmed the correctness of all the reports submitted by DepEd. On this score alone, she is liable under COA rules for submitting falsified data.<\/p>\n

Sara was not entitled to any CF in the second semester of 2022 since she could only utilize the balance of outgoing Vice President Leni Robredo\u2019s budget. Robredo had zero CF for six years under the administration of Rodrigo Duterte. Since she was not entitled to a CF from July 1 to December 31, 2022, Sara actually cadged P125-million from Malacanang and erroneously tagged it as her CF. The Palace clarified that the money came from the Contingent Fund of the Office of the President (OP) and Sara, being the recipient, must be held accountable for it. In short, she has to account for every single centavo spent. Why did Sara not account for the P125-million she secured from the Palace? The facile answer was that it was, by her reckoning, her own Confidential Fund, despite he legally not having a centavo to spare as CF.<\/p>\n

What is intriguing in this episode, which witness COA auditor Xylene del Campo of the Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office (ICFAO) affirmed, was the impossibility of one special disbursing officer (SDO), in the DepEd\u2019s case\u2014Edward Fajarda— to have distributed P459,000 on Feb. 21, 2023 to seven recipients across the country, two in Mindanao, three in separate provinces in the Visayas and one each in Makati and Malolos. The only way for Fajarda to do this was to be Superman, argued prosecution counsel Lorna P. Kapunan, or for him to be endowed with multilocality, or he can have separate bodies but linked by quantum entanglement. Since this is physically impossible, this proves that Fajarda did not disburse the cash and gives credence to an illegal act— the money was given to security officers as ordered by Sara herself.<\/p>\n

Four days later, Feb. 25, a total of 18 individuals received the amount of P725,000 from the DepEd SDO in 10 cities and provinces in Luzon, five in Mindanao and three in the Visayas. On Mar. 15, the DepEd distributed P1.14-million to 21 persons, with only from the Visayas, 10 in Luzon and another 10 in Mindanao. All told, the DepEd dispatched a total of P2.324 million in less than a month. With no official SDO distributing the money, COA naturally became suspicious and disallowed scores of ARs that bore no signatures, with the commission not being apprised of the identity of the recipients. Aside from these dubious transactions, DepEd also spent more than P2-million from the CF to hunt down the purported masterminds of a scam on car sales to DepEd personnel, a task not covered by the CF as it is a police matter.<\/p>\n

Yet, Sara and her minions legitimized it, with the OVP security reporting about it to the COA that the commission promptly disallowed. As one lawmaker surmised, Sara must have been used to taking shortcuts and flaying accounting and auditing rules while she ruled her roost in Davao City even as COA also questioned the billions spent for job orders, waste disposal projects and the missing assets of the city government. Her CF as Davao City mayor dwarfed the CFs of mayor of far bigger cities in the Visayas and Luzon. Yet, the issue at the impeachment trial is far bigger, much more serious than larceny at a local government unit (LGU.) It concerns the people\u2019s money. Sara should not get away with blue murder.<\/p>\n

All the arguments being advanced by Sara\u2019s enablers do not wash. Misusing the CF for a Christmas party, food for the pantry and purchasing medicines cannot apply to a fund ostensibly set aside to pay for rewards for information needed by both the DepEd and OVP. CF was not appropriated to subsidize drunken revelry in comedy bars or in ritzy haunts in Bonifacio Global City. If ordinary Filipinos lay by the heels once caught for misdemeanors, so must the high and the mighty be fettered for high crimes, like the ones slapped on Sara.<\/p>\n

Sara wanted a bloodbath. The bloodbath at the Senate awaits her. The evidence, boxes of them, have been expecting her royal presence at the impeachment trial and her taking the oath and defending herself mightily, bloodied but unbowed, to quote Hensley, have long been awaited by Filipinos who have monitored the trial. Sara, a lawyer, has refused to face the allegations against her and instead accused the prosecution of twisting the law after the Supreme Court (SC) dismissed her plea to kill the impeachment trial. She must have remembered the Latin phrase caveat actor (the actor or actress beware) that she has not been willing to testify, debunk the evidence against her and prove that she is lily-white, not lily-livered. Her dodging, ignorant replies and wild imaginings only that she is engaged in a wild goose chase.#<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

: Edward Fajarda, former special disbursing officer (SDO) of the Department of Education ( (Photo courtesy of House Press and Public Affairs Bureau) by Diego Morra The August 11, 2026 hearing on the impeachment trial of Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio showed a flood of acknowledgment receipts (ARs), disbursement vouchers (DVs) and physical and financial plans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6580,"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-6579","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