COA-ICFAO auditor Xylene Mae Del Campo testifies during the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte on Aug. 11, detailing audit findings on the Office of the Vice President’s confidential fund transactions.
The Commission on Audit (COA) found that about Php 131.8 million in rewards paid from the Office of the Vice President’s confidential funds lacked documents showing specific intelligence results that justified the payments, an auditor testified.
COA-Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office supervising auditor Xylene Del Campo told the Senate impeachment court that the amount covered transactions from December 2022 through the first three quarters of 2023.
Of the total, Php 69.787 million came from the OVP’s Php 125-million confidential fund released in December 2022. Another Php 62 million in rewards was paid during the first nine months of 2023.
During questioning by private prosecutor Lorna Kapunan, Del Campo said the records submitted by the OVP did not demonstrate specific accomplishments that would support the release of rewards under the rules governing confidential and intelligence funds.
For its 2023 spending, the OVP submitted certifications and Protective Intelligence Operations Reports containing information on dates, locations, potential threats and activities related to planning, operations and post-operation stages.
Del Campo said those documents generally indicated that no untoward incidents occurred during Vice President Sara Duterte’s engagements and OVP programs, but they did not identify concrete results from information-gathering or surveillance that could substantiate the rewards.
She maintained that the confidential nature of intelligence operations did not remove the need to provide COA with sufficient documentation to establish that public funds were properly spent. The audit requirement stems from Joint Circular No. 2015-01 governing confidential and intelligence funds.
COA eventually disallowed Php 448.287 million of the Php 500 million in OVP confidential funds released from December 2022 to September 2023. The transactions are among those being scrutinized in Duterte’s impeachment trial over allegations involving the use and liquidation of confidential funds.