MANILA – In a bombshell revelation that’s fanning fresh flames in the escalating probe into Vice President Sara Duterte’s office expenditures, the Commission on Audit (COA) has flagged 335 security personnel – including 200 close-in bodyguards and 135 office security staff – as still drawing salaries from the Office of the Vice President (OVP) as of September 2024, despite the agency’s dissolution of its own security unit in 2023. The finding, buried in COA’s 2023 annual audit report on the OVP’s P2.3 billion confidential and intelligence funds (CIF), underscores a web of questionable payouts that have ballooned to over P1.5 billion since 2022, prompting calls for deeper scrutiny amid allegations of misuse and ghost staffing.
The audit, released late last month, paints a picture of fiscal fog: The OVP’s CIF – a discretionary pot meant for covert ops and national security – exploded from P125 million in 2022 to P1.2 billion in 2023, with P1.5 billion disbursed across the two years. Yet, COA auditors couldn’t trace the funds’ footprints, flagging “inadequate supporting documents” and a lack of liquidation reports that left P1.25 billion unaccounted for. Enter the guards: Despite Vice President Duterte’s public disbandment of the OVP’s security detail in April 2023 – a move touted as cost-cutting amid budget woes – payroll records show the 335-strong contingent remained on the books, accruing P147.6 million in salaries and allowances through September 2024. “These personnel were supposedly absorbed by the Presidential Security Group (PSG), but payments continued from OVP coffers without clear justification,” COA State Auditor-in-Charge Cristina Morales noted in the report, raising red flags on potential double-dipping and unauthorized expenditures.
The controversy didn’t erupt in a vacuum. Duterte’s CIF spending has been under the microscope since September’s House hearings, where she defended the funds as essential for “national security” but faced grilling over vouchers lacking receipts and a pattern of bulk cash releases – P10 million at a pop – to unnamed recipients. The guards’ saga adds fuel: Sources close to the probe whisper of “ghost shadows” – personnel listed but rarely sighted, echoing broader CIF critiques where P1.2 billion vanished into thin air without a trace. “This isn’t security; it’s a sieve,” thundered Akbayan Rep. Chel Diokno during a recent plenary, demanding the OVP release full payroll manifests and PSG absorption proofs. “While families scrape for school supplies, P147 million flows to shadows – it’s time for sunlight.”
Duterte’s camp, ever combative, pushed back swiftly. OVP spokesperson Atty. Atty. Ireland de Castro insisted the guards were “transitional personnel” aiding the handover, with funds “properly liquidated” under CIF protocols. “The COA findings are preliminary and do not reflect the full context of national security imperatives,” de Castro stated, vowing a point-by-point rebuttal to the audit. But critics aren’t buying it: The Commission on Appointments (CA) has frozen Duterte’s ad interim appointments, and the Ombudsman is mulling a probe into CIF misuse, with whistleblower Zaldy Co’s videos alleging Palace-level meddling in budget diversions.
The stakes? Sky-high in a nation where trust in institutions hangs by a thread. The OVP’s P4.5 billion 2023 budget – dwarfed by the Palace’s P10 billion – has drawn ire for opacity, with CIF alone gobbling 27% of allocations. As the Trillion Peso March’s echoes fade, this payroll phantom feels like another verse in the graft ballad: 335 guards on ghost pay, P147 million untraced, and a public purse perpetually picked clean. For Duterte, whose 2028 presidential ambitions simmer amid the scandal stew, the COA’s ledger isn’t just numbers – it’s a nightmare that could drown her dreams.