As taxpayer spending under Sara Duterte’s Department of Education (DepEd) continues to be scrutinized, a recurring theme is emerging: high-ranking officials in the agency were receiving sums of cash inside envelopes that had no clear purpose nor source.
The House of Representatives (HoR) committee on good governance continued its inquiry into DepEd’s alleged misuse of public funds this week, particularly taking aim at the questionable use of confidential funds by its former secretary, Vice President Duterte. In the hot-seat of the committee this time is the education department’s chief accountant – Rhunna Catalan.
The DepEd official was being grilled on anomalous liquidation reports for Php112.5 million in confidential funds that she signed-off. Catalan admitted that although she signed those reports, she did not inspect any supporting documents that backed up those liquidation records.
Such an admission was alarming: how can you ascertain the veracity of those liquidation reports, or more importantly – its propriety – if you did not see what the funds were spent on? Asked why she would give her approval to unverified reports, Catalan said that she was “made to sign” the documents.
Pressed further, DepEd’s chief accountant admitted to receiving several envelopes containing cash from her superiors, without any explanation about its purpose. Each enveloped purportedly contained Php25,000 in cash, of which she received a total of nine envelopes during her stint in the department thus far.
Catalan’s admission makes her the third DepEd official to confess receiving cash-filled envelopes from their superiors in the department. Former undersecretary Gloria Jumamil Mercado, was the first to admit at the House hearings that she was receiving these mysterious envelopes, and was followed by the former chairman of DepEd’s bids and awards committee – Resty Osias.
In Catalan’s case, she was being interrogated over suspicious cash advances worth Php112.5 million in confidential funds that the former education secretary Duterte made last year. Neither the DepEd’s finance department, nor ex-secretary Duterte herself, could explain what the amount was spent on.
Desperate for answers, the House put the DepEd’s accounting department into question instead. The inquiry revealed that the chief accountant was receiving these cash envelopes, and was asked to sign off on the liquidation report for the cash advance by another high-ranking DepEd official – assistant secretary Sunshine Fajarda.
According to Catalan, each time ASec. Fajarda would hand her an envelope the latter explained it was an “allowance from the VP“. Coincidentally, it was Fajarda as well that allegedly gave cash envelopes to former USec. Mercado and former chairman Osias.
The other two DepEd officials were receiving these envelopes during the same period of time which Catalan received them. However, there were differing amounts inside each of their envelopes: USec. Mercado allegedly received Php50,000 in each envelope, meanwhile chairman Osias recounted finding between Php12-15,000 in his own allocations.
In USec. Mercado’s case, each time she would be given an envelope by Fajarda the latter would tell her it was “from the VP”; drawing strong similarities with Catalan’s own account. What lends further credence to these testimonies is that ASec. Fajarda is the wife of Eduard Fajarda, the Special Disbursement Officer (SDO) of the DepEd who is responsible for disbursement and liquidation of cash advances in the department.
In criminal investigation parlance, this means that ASec. Fajarda had opportunity to find such funds to then handover to these department executives. The question now is: what is the motive?
VP Duterte’s use of confidential funds in the DepEd attracted scrutiny because neither she nor her subordinates could explain what the funds were spent on. That is on top of questions on why the education department would need confidential funds in the first place – a special budget typically used by law enforcement or agencies involved in national security.
It makes sense that to pull-off any improper use of taxpayer funds, you would ensure that you are on the good side of department officials involved in bids and awards, procurement and also the accounting department. Those were the departments of Osias, Mercado and Catalan, respectively.
As Catalan mentioned during her House testimony, she felt inclined to sign-off on the liquidation report for the anomalous Php112.5 million cash advance by the former DepEd secretary because she had received those cash allowances. In fact, she acquiesced to ASec. Fajardo’s request to sign-off the report without seeing supporting documents.
The only reason you need to inveigle officials into allowing your spending is because you know that your expenditure is improper. With further revelations from the House inquiry revealing the bogus funding of a youth training scheme that was actually funded by the military, or the widespread typographical errors found in supporting documents justifying the use of confidential funds, the picture is becoming clearer as to what was truly happening in the DepEd during Sara Duterte’s tenure.
Meanwhile, Filipino students suffer from a chronic lack of classrooms – especially in the countryside. Filipino teachers continue to seek greener pastures abroad, unable to support their families with the salary they are earning in the country.
A litany of problems beleaguer the country’s education department, yet under Sara Duterte hundreds of millions of taxpayer funds were being spent anomalously. While further hearings are scheduled and more inquiry is needed to get the full picture, what has been revealed so far regarding VP Duterte’s time at the DepEd is already unforgivable.