VP defense team, staff may have to pay for own food

Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian on Thursday said the chamber “cannot afford” to shoulder the catering service for Vice President Sara Duterte’s staff and the lawyers for the duration of her impeachment trial.

The Office of the Vice President (OVP) earlier requested the Senate, now also serving as an impeachment court, that Duterte’s aides and legal counsels be provided with food and drinks of their choosing at the chamber’s expense.

“We cannot afford it,” Gatchalian told reporters, though clarifying that the Senate had yet to formally reply to the OVP’s request. “It’s a basic issue of budget. The budget can’t [be granted] because we have expenses. We have to prioritize, of course, the budget hearings and committee hearings.”

Sen. Erwin Tulfo earlier said he and his colleagues in the majority bloc are also opposed to Duterte’s request, citing the same reason given by Gatchalian.

Sounds like a ‘demand’

At the House of Representatives, one of Duterte’s longtime critics said the Senate has obligation to fund her team and might even expose itself later to questioning over its spending.

“The OVP is essentially opening the Senate to a procurement case. It seems they want their own caterer, but with someone else footing the bill,” Bicol Saro Rep. Terry Ridon said in a media briefing.

For Ridon, a member of the House prosecution team, the OVP’s request sounded more like a “demand.”

In June, Gatchalian said in media interviews that chamber spends an average of about P25 million for a regular day of operations, or without an impeachment trial taken into account.

Of the four articles of impeachment being heard by the court, one accuses the Vice President of misusing P612 million in confidential funds. —REPORTS FROM KEITH CLORES AND KENNETH CHRISTIANE BASILIO