HOUSE Minority Leader Marcelino “Nonoy” Libanan has called on Undersecretary Zuleika Lopez, Chief of Staff at the Office of the Vice President (OVP), to seize the opportunity to defend herself at congressional hearings on the alleged misuse of public funds.
“Typically, individuals who have done no wrong would take the earliest chance to clear their names,” Libanan stated on Monday.
During a session on November 11, the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability cited four other OVP officials—Assistant Secretary Lemuel Ortonio, Gina Acosta, Sunshine Fajarda, and Edward Fajarda—in contempt for repeatedly failing to attend the hearings, issuing a detention order alongside the citation.
Lopez, who was also absent from the November 11 hearing, avoided a contempt citation after submitting a letter explaining her absence, citing travel to the U.S. to care for an ill relative. The committee granted her one last chance to attend the next hearing.
Libanan criticized the continued absences as “strange and out of the ordinary,” noting that Lopez left the country on November 4, a day before a previous hearing on November 5. He added, “If they have nothing to hide, they should appear before the hearings to address and dispute the allegations.”
| via Samar Chronicle (rjb)
