Execs: VP ordered cash turnover to security group

SMALL TALK Vice President Sara Duterte chats with her staff member Edward Fajarda, who also served as special disbursing officer when she headed the Department of Education, during the suspension of the hearing of the House committee on good government and public accountability on Monday. —LYN RILLON/INQUIRER

Vice President Sara Duterte ordered the turnover of millions of pesos in cash to ranking officials of her security group for spending, special disbursing officers (SDOs) claimed before the House of Representatives panel looking into the alleged misuse of funds, including confidential funds, in the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd).

OVP SDO Gina Acosta and DepEd SDO Edward Fajarda pointed at members of the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group (VPSPG) as the ones who, “in reality,” disbursed the confidential funds of the two agencies during Monday’s hearing of the House committee on good government and public accountability.

Acosta and Fajarda, together with the latter’s wife Sunshine Charry, and OVP assistant chief of staff and bids and awards committee chair Lemuel Ortonio, surfaced before the committee after refusing to attend previous hearings. The Fajardas previously served at DepEd, with Edward designated as SDO and his wife as assistant secretary during Duterte’s tenure as secretary. The couple transferred to the OVP when Duterte resigned as education secretary in July.

Four bags of cash

Acosta told the panel chaired by Manila Rep. Joel Chua that, in December 2022, she gave P125 million encashed from the Land Bank of the Philippines-Shaw Boulevard branch to VPSPG ground commander Col. Raymund Dante Lachica on Duterte’s order.

Fajarda, for his part, identified a certain Col. Dennis Nolasco, who was assigned by Lachica and designated by Duterte as DepEd security officer, as the one to whom he entrusted the disbursement of the agency’s 2023 confidential funds amounting to P112.5 million.

Grilled by Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro, Acosta recalled that she was accompanied by Ortonio and two VPSPG personnel who drove them in two separate vehicles when she cashed the P125-million check. She narrated that she and Ortonio placed the cash in four black traveling bags—two containing P30 million each and two others over P30 million.

“I was afraid (of having a huge amount) so I asked Asec Ortonio to accompany me,” Acosta told the panel in Filipino. She added that they brought the bags to her “extension office” at the OVP where three safes are kept.

Trusted by VP

She narrated that she called Lachica to inform him that the money was ready for pickup. “I didn’t have to put the cash inside the [safes] and immediately handed the cash to Colonel Lachica,” she said, adding that she gave the money to Lachica because “he is trusted by the head of office.”

Asked if she believed supposed recipient “Mary Grace Piattos” existed, Acosta said that there were people surnamed “Piattos” in Davao. Piattos’ signature appeared in acknowledgment receipts for Duterte’s confidential funds.

Questioned by panel vice chair Antipolo City Rep. Romeo Acop, Edward Fajarda identified Nolasco as the security officer who spent the agency’s P112.5-million confidential funds from February to September 2023.

Fajarda said he gave Nolasco P4 million to P6 million weekly from the P37.5-million check he cashed each quarter based on a quarterly activity plan the security officer showed him.

‘Blatant disregard’

Meanwhile, Duterte’s chief of staff Zuleika Lopez, who remains confined at Veterans Memorial Medical Center, asked to be excused from Monday’s hearing claiming to have been diagnosed with acute stress disorder.

Lopez attached a certification signed by at least four doctors but panel members noted that the document did not explicitly state that the OVP chief of staff should be excused due to her medical condition.

The Quezon City Trial Lawyers League Inc. condemned the House’s “blatant disregard” for the right to due process and the presumption of innocence of Lopez when it issued orders citing her in contempt and directing her detention at the women’s correctional facility.

“The acts undertaken by the House committee on good government and public accountability against Atty. Lopez are patently tantamount to grave abuse of discretion, amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction,” said the group, headed by lawyer Victor Rodriguez, former executive secretary to President Marcos, in a statement. —WITH A REPORT FROM JANE BAUTISTA