National-democratic groups picketed before Congress yesterday, September 23, to call for the impeachment of Sara Duterte as vice president. Bagong Alyansang Makabayan said Duterte deserves to be impeached due to her anomalous spending of confidential and intelligence funds allotted to her office in the past years. It said this can be considered “betrayal of public trust” which can be a basis to file an impeachment complaint against her in Congress.

“Why doesn’t VP Sara explain how she spent her ₱73 million ‘disallowed’ budget?” Atty. Carlos Zarate of Bayan Muna asked. “She still has no answer to the questions asked by the Commission on Audit, this is a violation of her duty.”

“The squandering of our taxes is unacceptable to our workers,” Jerome Adonis, Kilusang Mayo Uno secretary general and Makabayan senatorial candidate, said. “While public services are underfunded, our taxes are being used for surveillance, violence, and fascism against us and our unions using confidential funds.”

In the Commission on Audit’s last report, Dutete spent all of the ₱500 million CIF of her office in just seven months in 2022-2023. Of this amount, ₱237 million was spent questionably. Part of this is the ₱73 million returned by the COA (disallowed) and the ₱164 million that is currently being investigated due to potential misspending.

Apart from the CIF, anomalies within the Department of Education when Duterte was still its secretary have also been revealed. Among them are failure to build classrooms, delay in basic services in schools such as electricity connection and serving spoiled food to children.

The groups also called for the cancellation of all CIFs, including the more than P4 billion earmarked for Ferdinand Marcos Jr, and the removal of all presidential pork barrel.