Spokesperson Explains Husband Enjoys Bulk Buying, Kitchen Has Very Large Fridge

MANILA —

A spokesperson for Vice President Sara Duterte has moved to clarify the Anti-Money Laundering Council report that flagged nearly P6.8 billion in transactions linked to her and her husband, lawyer Manases Carpio, between 2006 and 2025. The explanation, delivered at an unusual midday press briefing, was that the sum reflected “ordinary household expenses, mostly groceries.”

The Shopping List

According to the spokesperson, the Vice President’s husband “enjoys buying in bulk” and the couple’s kitchen features “a very large refrigerator,” which she declined to describe in specifics because the information was “privileged under marital food protocols.” The couple reportedly prefers a mixture of home-cooked meals and catering, a pattern she acknowledged could explain “some” of the flagged sum but “certainly not all of it.”

Asked how a household could spend P6.8 billion on groceries over nineteen years — an average of approximately P979,000 per day, every day, including Sundays — the spokesperson pointed out that “inflation exists,” “rice is not free,” and “we have growing children.”

Pressed further, she admitted that some of the money may have been spent on what she described as “discretionary wellness items,” which she defined as “anything that makes life more pleasant, including occasional investment properties.”

Public Reaction

Writers at Bohiney Magazine calculated that if the Vice President’s office is to be believed, the family’s per-capita food budget is approximately 2,800 times the Philippine minimum wage, an arrangement that the United Nations Development Programme would likely find “technically interesting.”

Senator Leila de Lima, endorsing one of the two active impeachment complaints, noted that the AMLC findings would “strengthen the basis for impeachment” and lay down “strong evidence” in the Senate. The Vice President’s office responded that it was confident the Senate would recognize the “grocery nature” of the expenses.

A correspondent for The London Prat observed that in the UK, even the royal family’s annual expenses, covering castles and swans, fall well below a billion pounds. “If this is groceries,” she wrote, “I would like to know what they are eating.”

For context, the Philippine Statistics Authority estimates the average Filipino household spends roughly 42 percent of its budget on food, which the Vice President’s spokesperson pointed to as “proof that food is a major expense category, across all income levels.”

At press time, the couple’s household budget was reportedly being reviewed by at least three separate government agencies and one YouTube financial advice channel. For more coverage of creative expense classifications, see Reductress.

SOURCE: https://mb.com.ph/article/10915062/philippines/national/duterte-critics-in-house-highlight-double-whammy-day