In a bid to smear the integrity of the Office of the Vice President (OVP), a Facebook (FB) page supporting presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. used a news report on deficiencies flagged in the funds of the state auditing agency and misleadingly attributed it to the OVP.
In its Feb. 12 post, FB page Coach Jarret questioned in the caption what an “honest government” (gobyernong tapat)—Vice President Leni Robredo’s campaign promise—looks like under her party. It then attached screenshots of news reports that supposedly show anomalies in the OVP’s management of its funds.
One of the screenshots was of a CNN Philippines article with the headline “COA (Commission on Audit) also flagged over ₱12.3-M unliquidated cash advances” published in August 2021.
But going through the entire article shows this was about state auditors questioning their colleagues at the COA—not the OVP—in 2020 over unliquidated cash advances for foreign and local travel amounting to P12.39 million. It likewise flagged the grant of P13.62 million in cash advances to COA officers and employees despite not liquidating previous advances.
Read the full story on VERA Files Fact Check.
