Former Office of the Vice President (OVP) special disbursing officer (SDO) Gina Acosta admitted during the Senate impeachment trial that she followed identical procedures for managing confidential funds during her tenure in Davao City and at the OVP.
This included allowing cash recipients to retrieve their signed acknowledgment receipts once the liquidation process was complete.
The testimony arose as prosecution panel member Atty. Amando Ligutan examined Acosta’s management of confidential funds, drawing parallels between her former post under then-Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte and her subsequent role at the OVP.
Ligutan noted that Davao City received ₱460 million annually in confidential funds from 2019 to 2022, totaling ₱1.84 billion.
Although Acosta stated she could no longer recall the exact figures for Davao City, prosecution questioning shifted to the OVP’s handling of ₱500 million released in four ₱125-million tranches to Col. Raymund Lachica, Duterte’s former security chief.
Acosta detailed that while Lachica signed internal acknowledgment papers upon receiving cash releases, he later retrieved those documents after submitting utilization reports and completing liquidation with the Commission on Audit (COA).
Presiding Officer Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero sought clarification regarding whether the documents were returned to Lachica:
“So wala na po sa kamay niyo, nasa kamay na po niya?” Escudero asked.
“Wala na po sa akin, Your Honor,” Acosta replied.
When Escudero confirmed that this sequence occurred across all four 2023 releases, Ligutan asked whether this practice was carried out during her time in Davao City. Acosta initially hesitated:
“I will have to recall, Your Honor, kasi matagal na po ’yun,” she said.
After defense lawyers objected to Ligutan describing the process as a “modus operandi,” Escudero rephrased the query to ask if releasing funds to an unbonded security officer, collecting signed receipts, and returning those receipts post-liquidation was her standard practice in both roles:
“Ito po ba’y kinagawian ninyong practice at proseso nung kayo po ay SDO ng Davao kaugnay ng confidential fund at nung kayo ay SDO ng OVP?” Escudero asked.
“Opo, Your Honor,” Acosta confirmed.
Acosta acknowledged that Lachica lacked a fidelity bond when receiving the four ₱125-million tranches between December 2022 and the third quarter of 2023.
“Dili po siya bonded, Your Honor, pero ang accountable pa rin, Your Honor, I am still the accountable person, Your Honor,” she stated.
Acosta explained that Duterte tasked Lachica with executing confidential operations and conceded that she had no direct knowledge of how Lachica distributed the money to final recipients, relying solely on his submitted documentation.