HARDLY ON SAME PAGE Questions concerning a storybook written by Vice President Sara Duterte result in a verbal tussle between her and Sen. Risa Hontiveros throughout Tuesday’s price range listening to. Issues bought testy after Duterte refused to immediately reply why P10 million have to be spent to distribute “Isang Kaibigan (A Buddy),” its cowl and writer’s web page proven within the insets. SENATE SOCIAL MEDIA UNIT/CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS
Vice President Sara Duterte plans to jot down one other e-book, this time about being betrayed by a buddy.
“Brace for my subsequent e-book that I’ll write a few buddy’s betrayal,” Duterte stated in an announcement on Wednesday night time, proper after she verbally sparred with Sen. Risa Hontiveros who requested her a few P10 million allotment in her workplace’s proposed 2025 price range for the printing of her self-authored kids’s e-book titled “Isang Kaibigan (A Buddy).”
The 2 briefly exchanged phrases with Duterte accusing the senator of politicizing her price range. She even introduced up the time when Hontiveros, who was nonetheless operating for senator, requested her for assist in Davao Metropolis.
In her assertion, Duterte defended herself from allegations of plagiarism after a number of individuals observed similarities between her e-book which tells of a friendship between an owl and a parrot and one other kids’s e-book.
Famend writer Ninotchka Rosca posted on her Fb the duvet of the Owly sequence “Owly: Only a Little Blue,” the second e-book within the sequence by American writer Andy Runton that was revealed in 2006.
The e-book sequence tells the story of a lonely little owl named Owly who’s at all times on the seek for new associates.
READ: VP Sara’s ‘Isang Kaibigan’ e-book sparks heated trade in Senate
Duterte, nevertheless, stated, “It’s really easy to jot down a brief story primarily based by yourself expertise; there isn’t a want to repeat it from one other.”
“This undertaking is meant to encourage our youth to have a passion for studying and to jot down their very own tales,” she added.
“The e-book needs to be the least of nation’s issues as a result of [the main issue here is] our youth’s weak spot in studying comprehension,” stated the previous training secretary.
Home Deputy Minority Chief France Castro, in the meantime, noticed Duterte’s propensity for straying from her official duties, notably her request for P10 million to print her e-book and her demand for media to be given restricted entry at Ninoy Aquino Worldwide Airport (Naia).
‘Not her mandate’
“Plainly VP Duterte has a penchant for doing issues that aren’t her mandate just like the P125 million confidential funds that she spent in 11 days in 2022, or writing books utilizing public funds, or ordering Naia to tighten their safety and never enable media entry to the airport as a result of she was caught leaving for Germany on the top of Hurricane ‘Carina,’” Castro stated.
She identified the P10 million that Duterte was in search of could be higher spent on addressing the nation’s urgent issues on unemployment, low wages, excessive value of products and the shortage of school rooms.