The Commission on Audit has flagged the Office of the Vice President over ₱168 million in 2025 relief operations that auditors say it cannot fully document — including ₱84.12 million handed out under mission orders that never specified who, exactly, was supposed to receive it.
The findings are laid out in a COA report submitted Aug. 28, 2026 to Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro and reported by The Philippine Star's Daphne Galvez on Sept. 24. They cover relief assistance the OVP, under Vice President Sara Duterte, distributed the previous year — the same office now facing an impeachment trial over separate allegations that it misused confidential funds.
Where the ₱168 million breaks down
Auditors split the discrepancies into four categories. The largest, ₱84.12 million, involves eight mission orders that specified only "affected or displaced families" as beneficiaries rather than naming actual target numbers — auditors say that vagueness weakens any justification for how much relief was actually needed or given. Another ₱39 million covers 24 relief operations where schedules, locations, item quantities, and rice distribution amounts were changed without documented approval for the deviation. A further ₱25.27 million is tied to missing or incomplete paperwork — situation reports, mission orders, master lists — with one batch of relief distribution sheets reportedly lost during Typhoon Kristine. The remaining ₱19.67 million stems from mismatches between what the OVP reported and what local government units validated on the ground, including LGUs that never documented beneficiary counts at all.
Auditors also flagged broader procedural sloppiness: inconsistent master-list certifications, duplicate entries, and non-uniform documentation formats across operations.
In its response to the audit, OVP management cited operational adjustments made because of field conditions and the need for flexibility during emergencies. That may explain why a schedule changed on short notice during an actual disaster. It does not explain why nearly half the flagged amount is tied to mission orders that never said who the money or goods were for in the first place — a gap that isn't about speed, it's about record-keeping that should have been possible whether the relief went out on day one or day ten.
Context
The audit adds a second, independent thread of financial scrutiny to an office already under the country's highest-stakes accountability proceeding. Duterte is on trial before the Senate impeachment court on four charges, including misuse of confidential funds and unexplained wealth; the Senate on Sept. 23 lowered the effective conviction threshold to 14 votes given senator absences. This COA finding does not form part of the impeachment case, but it lands in the same year the OVP's paperwork practices have become a matter of public record for entirely separate reasons — audits, unlike impeachment votes, don't require a two-thirds majority to reach a conclusion.
What's still unknown
COA's report does not allege the ₱168 million was stolen or diverted — its findings concern documentation and approval gaps, not confirmed loss of funds. It is not yet clear whether OVP has since supplied the missing mission-order details or beneficiary lists, or whether COA considers the office's "operational flexibility" explanation sufficient to close the finding. Neither COA nor OVP has released a public timeline for resolving the flagged items.
Sources
- Daphne Galvez, "COA flags OVP over relief operation discrepancies," Philstar.com, Sept. 24, 2026 — https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2026/09/24/2558542/coa-flags-ovp-over-relief-operation-discrepancies