Vice President Sara Duterte attends a hearing for the Office of the Vice President's 2025 budget at the House of Representatives on August 27, 2024.  Photo courtesy of the House of Representatives 

MANILA — Several officials from the Office of the Vice President on Tuesday declined to attend a House inquiry on the expenditures of their office, saying that the deliberations were “not in aid of legislation.”

The officials — including 7 who were earlier subpoenaed by the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability — sent a document to the chamber to explain their absence in the November 5 congressional hearing.

“It has been our consistent position that a draft bill for consideration must be included in the invitation for the information of the resource person,” the OVP officials said. 

“We observed that the subject matter of the proceedings has substantially changed, and discussions are no longer germane to the original matter for referral,” they said.

“This provides an unfair setting for resource persons… It is akin to a violation of their rights to due process for lack of proper notice of the definite scope of their appearance,” they added.

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The document from the OVP also alleged that the following personnel have not received the subpoena from the House.

- Atty. Zuleika Lopez, chief of staff

- Lemuel Ortonio, OVP bids and awards committee chair

- Rosalynne Sanchez, administrative and financial services director

- Julieta Villadelrey, chief accountant

- Gina Acosta, special disbursing officer

- Sunshine Fajarda, former Education assistant secretary

- Edward Fajarda, husband of Sunshine Fajarda

While the House transmitted a subpoena to the OVP on November 4, the office declined to receive the document as it was “issued for a past October 28, 2024 hearing schedule.”

Another request for OVP personnel to appear before the House panel was sent on November 1, but “the office was not open during the declared holiday on November 1, 2024,” the letter read.

“Given these circumstances, the Subpoena can no longer be legally served nor obeyed,” it said.

“We respectfully direct the attention of the Committee to Section 8 of the Rules that provide that a subpoena shall be served to a witness at least three days before a scheduled hearing in order to give the witness every opportunity to prepare and to employ counsel, should the witness desire,” it added.

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The OVP also questioned why the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability was in charge of these proceedings when the issues involved the budget and expenditures of the country’s second-in-command.

“We reiterate our position that it is the Committee on Appropriations that has the proper jurisdiction on the issues raised,” the OVP officials said. 

“The Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability is also without jurisdiction to take up the present subject matter, considering further that there has been no determination as to the existence of malfeasance, misfeasance and nonfeasance in office,” they said. 

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The document said that "persons invited to appear before a legislative inquiry do so as resource persons and not as accused in a criminal proceeding.”

“They should be accorded respect and courtesy since they were under no compulsion to accept the invitation extended before them, yet they did so anyway,” the letter read.

“Their accommodation of a request should not in any way be repaid with insinuations."

The letter of the OVP to the House was sent a day after some lawmakers  asked the Department of Justice to issue an immigration lookout bulletin order against some officials of the Office of the Vice President, who were allegedly planning to flee the country amid congressional investigations.