VICE President Sara Duterte revealed on Thursday that the confidential funds allocated to the Department of Education (DepEd) during her term as secretary were used to investigate alleged widespread corruption within the agency — including the controversial P2.9-billion laptop deal for teachers.
Speaking at the Pandesal Forum held at Kamuning Bakery in Quezon City, Duterte said the confidential funds helped probe corruption reports in both the central and regional offices of DepEd.
“There were many reports of corruption inside the Department of Education, not just in the central office but also in the regional offices. So whenever there are reports, we will investigate — and one of those we investigated was the laptop deal,” Duterte told reporters.
Her statement, however, appeared to contradict DepEd’s earlier position that it was unaware of how Duterte spent the P112.5 million confidential funds allotted to the department in 2023.
Previously, she declined to disclose details on the use of the funds, citing the Commission on Audit (COA) as the authorized body to review them.
Duterte clarified that their probe found the procurement of the overpriced laptops did not take place within DepEd but through the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM).
“Not all procurement documents are in DepEd. What we could only do back then was to blacklist companies,” she said.
However, Duterte admitted that the department did not succeed in blacklisting the suppliers and instead relied on recommendations from the COA and the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, which also investigated the transaction.