Was the Public Treasury a Political Piggy Bank?

There are moments in an impeachment trial when the issue stops being about accounting procedures and starts becoming a question of character.

The testimony of Gina Acosta, the former special disbursing officer of the Office of the Vice President, may be one of those moments.

Acosta testified before the Senate impeachment court that Vice President Sara Duterte personally ordered her to release ₱125 million in confidential funds to then-Col. Raymund Lachica, her former security chief. The transfer was subsequently questioned by state auditors because the rules governing confidential funds did not authorize such a security officer to receive the money.

The important detail is not simply the ₱125 million.
It is the chain of command.

Acosta did not testify that she independently decided to hand over the money.
She said she was following the Vice President’s order.
And that is precisely what makes this testimony so politically explosive.

A public official is not the owner of public money.
The money sitting in a government account does not become the personal property of whoever happens to control the account. Confidential funds may be secret in their application, but they remain public funds.

That distinction appears to have become the central moral question of this impeachment case.

During the proceedings, COA auditor Xylene del Campo testified that the transfer of the confidential fund disbursement to Lachica violated the governing joint circular, specifically because the arrangement did not comply with the rules governing who may receive and handle such funds.

And there is something deeply disturbing about that.

Because if the highest official in an office tells a subordinate to do something that the rules do not permit, what is the subordinate supposed to do?

Say no to the Vice President?
Or obey—and hope that the signature, paperwork and institutional hierarchy will somehow protect everyone later?

That is why this is bigger than ₱125 million.
It is about the fidelity of public officials to public money.
Was it treated like a gift?

Prosecutor Lorna Kapunan put the issue in almost painfully simple terms.
In response to Duterte’s arguments about the allocation of confidential funds, Kapunan asked whether the Vice President thought that being given confidential funds meant that the money was somehow a gift to her.
It was not.
“Hindi po yan regalo sa iyo. Public funds pa rin yan.”
Not a gift.
Public funds.
That may be the most important sentence in this entire controversy.
Because there is a dangerous mentality that can develop around political power: I won the election, therefore I have earned the resources that come with the office.
No.
You won a mandate.
You did not win the Treasury.
The people did not elect a proprietor of government funds. They elected a public servant entrusted with those funds.
And the greater the office, the greater the obligation to demonstrate restraint.
The disturbing part is the nonchalance
What troubles me most is not even the size of the amount.

₱125 million is enormous to an ordinary Filipino, but the deeper problem is the apparent nonchalance toward the rules governing the money.

Government accounting rules exist precisely because public officials cannot simply say: I needed it, I ordered it, therefore it was legitimate.

That is not how public administration works.

The rules are supposed to be the guardrails against precisely this kind of discretion.
And when those guardrails are ignored by the very people who are supposed to uphold them, something more fundamental breaks.
Trust.

This is why impeachment is not merely a legal exercise.

It is a test of whether the occupant of one of the highest offices in the land understands the difference between political power and public trust.

And then comes the 2028 question
Here is where speculation inevitably enters the political conversation.

Could these funds have had anything to do with building a political war chest for 2028?
Could the Duterte camp have regarded confidential funds as a resource that could eventually strengthen its political machinery?
Could there have been some political understanding between Sara Duterte and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. when they were still allies?

These are legitimate questions for journalists and investigators to ask.
But they are not established facts.

There is, at present, no evidence presented in the sources I reviewed that proves the ₱125 million transfer was part of a secret Duterte-Marcos agreement to finance Sara Duterte’s 2028 presidential ambitions.
And that distinction matters.

We should not turn an impeachment trial into a conspiracy factory.

But neither should we be afraid to ask the question.
Because politics has always been about resources.

Campaigns require money. Political organizations require money. Networks require money. And anyone contemplating a presidential campaign in 2028 will inevitably be thinking about how to build an organization capable of competing nationally.

That is precisely why every peso of confidential money must be subjected to even greater scrutiny—not less.

If public money was used for legitimate intelligence and security purposes, document it in accordance with the law and defend it.
If it was used improperly, explain it.

If it was transferred to someone who was not legally authorized to receive it, explain why.
And if someone ordered it despite knowing—or being expected to know—that the rules prohibited it, then accountability must follow.

The real issue is not Sara Duterte’s political future
It is tempting to frame all of this as another chapter in the Duterte-Marcos political war.
But that would actually diminish the issue.
This is not fundamentally about Marcos.
It is not fundamentally about Duterte.
It is not even fundamentally about 2028.

It is about a principle that should survive every president, every vice president and every political dynasty: Public money is held in trust.

The presidency is not an inheritance.
The vice presidency is not a personal corporation.
A confidential fund is not a political allowance.
And winning an election does not mean winning ownership of the government’s bank account.

If the impeachment trial establishes that ₱125 million was released because the Vice President ordered it, despite rules that did not permit the recipient to receive such funds, then the Senate should judge that evidence according to the constitutional standard before it—not according to partisan loyalty.
Because the question ultimately isn’t:
“How much money was involved?”
The question is:
“What did you believe you were entitled to do with money that belonged to the Filipino people?”
That is the question Sara Duterte must answer.
And it is a question that should haunt every public official who believes an election victory gives them a blank check.