Accountability for all accomplices
One of the highlights in Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial on Monday was Senator-judge Erwin Tulfo’s sharp reprimand, when he called out hostile witness Gina Acosta for speaking only in Bisaya during her testimony. Translating the words of the special disbursement officer (SDO) of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) from Bisaya to English and Filipino, and vice versa for the prosecution lawyer’s questions, had slowed down the trial that marked its 16th day this week.
“I don’t understand why she seems to be having such difficulty speaking Filipino here when, in fact, she answered in Filipino during the hearing in Congress last November,” Tulfo said, citing excerpts of Acosta’s replies in Filipino and English when she first appeared at a 2024 hearing in the House of Representatives.
“Enough of this deception!” Tulfo remonstrated, before asking presiding officer Sen. Francis Escudero “to compel the witness to speak in Filipino.”
Acosta’s prevarication may have been deliberate, as her subsequent testimony on the Vice President’s controversial confidential funds revealed the extent of fraud, impunity, and corruption that attended the OVP’s handling of hundreds of millions in taxpayer money.
Bending COA rules
In her damning testimony, Acosta admitted that she had released confidential funds worth some P500 million—P125 million in 2022 and P375 million in 2023—to Duterte’s chief security officer Col. Raymund Dante Lachica, on orders of “Ma’am Sara Duterte.”
As a longtime government employee, Acosta would have been familiar with the Commission on Audit’s (COA) Joint Circular 2015-01, which specifically states that “ … under standard regulations, cash advances handled by an SDO cannot be transferred to unauthorized third parties or other individuals for disbursement.”
So “unauthorized” indeed that Acosta herself couldn’t ascertain whether Lachica was an OVP employee or if he drew his salary from this office. As part of the VP’s security detail, Lachica was in fact under the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and nowhere in all the required COA documents did his name appear.
Acosta’s deference to Lachica on Duterte’s order may be traced to her years of service as SDO for confidential funds to the then Davao City mayor from 2019 to 2022. Having worked together, did she and Duterte develop a modus of disbursing confidential funds outside COA rules without raising an alarm? Did Duterte take Acosta with her to the OVP because the underling had proven amenable to bending COA rules for her boss?
Command responsibility
Should the VP be impeached because of such “irregular” transactions, Acosta would surely lose her cushy job, a lucrative posting at salary grade 24 or a monthly pay of from P98,000 to P109,000.
But why should accountability stop with the Vice President? While command responsibility applies, shouldn’t the SDO be sanctioned as well for her role in perpetuating this anomalous release and COA-disallowed use of public funds?
Consider how this SDO propped up the irregular process, first by releasing P500 million to a third party against COA rules, and without official receipts or supporting documents. Next, handing over millions in cash when the usual protocol was to issue checks to proponent agencies to establish a paper trail of disbursement for better accountability. Third, giving the “unauthorized” recipient too much leeway in determining how public funds were used: from planning “generic” projects under “good governance,” to implementing these plans deemed too “confidential” for even COA scrutiny, and preparing the accomplishment report where “no untoward incident” was considered sufficient to define success.
Duterte’s accomplices
Clearly, Acosta had abetted this fraud and provided official cover that allowed the OVP to treat taxpayer money flagrantly as personal funds. Shouldn’t this SDO be also made accountable for this massive fraud, if only to impress on other government employees how public trust lodges with them as well? Just “following orders” should no longer be an acceptable excuse; the Civil Service Commission and the Ombudsman should look into this case for the appropriate charges that Acosta should face.
In the same vein, the AFP should update the public on results of its investigation into Lachica and another VP security officer, Col. Dennis Nolasco, who handled Duterte’s confidential funds for the Department of Education. After their names emerged at the House preliminary hearings on the VP’s impeachment, the AFP said it would investigate the two officers for possible administrative liability. Lachica was relieved as chief of the VP’s security detail in October 2025 but remains posted at headquarters. While never compelled to appear at the House hearings, he and Nolasco should be called to testify at the Senate impeachment trial.
Knowing the extent of Acosta’s and Lachica’s role in the misuse of at least half a billion pesos of the OVP’s confidential funds, shouldn’t both be charged as Duterte’s accomplices in this high crime?
