FACT-CHECK: Makabayan lawmakers not silent during OVP budget deliberations

CLAIM: Makabayan bloc lawmakers were silent during the House deliberations of the 2023 budget of the Office of the Vice President 

RATING: FALSE

An X (formerly known as Twitter) user made the false claim that Makabayan bloc lawmakers were silent during last year’s House deliberations of the 2023 budget of the Office of the Vice President (OVP).

The X user also took the opportunity to red-tag the progressive lawmakers.

“Last year, VP (Vice President) Sara Duterte was present during the budget deliberation for her OVP and DepED. The 3 commies were also there. It was their opportunity to grill her. Unfortunately, they were silent for whatever reason. Will it happen again in this year’s budget deliberation?,” Zen Nepomuceno said in his post.

PressOne reviewed the extensive news coverage of the budget deliberations and found that members of the Makabayan bloc were present and active but were unable to ask questions.

This was because the hearing was immediately terminated as courtesy to the vice president.

Multiple news organizations reported how the House appropriations committee “swiftly terminated the deliberations on the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) P2.92-billion budget for 2023.”

During the hearing, House Minority Floor Leader and 4Ps party-list Rep. Marcelino Libanan acknowledged that the Makabayan Bloc lawmakers had expressed their interest to interpellate the OVP budget, contrary to Nepomuceno’s claim that the lawmakers were “silent.”

“As the minority leader and as a courtesy of the whole House of Representatives by our speaker, all of us while some members of the Makabayan bloc would like to provide questions on some new items in the budget, they would also provide questions in the plenary to extend our courtesy to the  Office of the Vice President. And therefore Mr. House Speaker, I move to terminate the briefing of the Office of the Vice President,” he said.

Inquirer and ANC uploaded the video of the proceedings, which showed the swift termination of the hearing.

Past deliberations on the OVP budget were also conducted swiftly and with no interpellations.  – Rommel F. Lopez

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