# Gina F. Acosta

Gina Fuerzas Acosta (born May 15, 1965) is a government official currently serving as a staff member at the Office of the Vice President of the Philippines (OVP) under Sara Duterte. Designated as a special disbursing officer at the office, Acosta has been cited as the official who directly coordinated with vice president Duterte in handling the OVP's confidential funds in 2022 and 2023. During a House committee hearing in November 2024, Acosta testified that she disbursed the funds solely to Col. Raymund D. Lachica, chief of the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group, upon the orders of Duterte.

## Career
### Davao City

Acosta was hired as a staff member of the Davao City government during the mayorship of Sara Duterte in the 2010s. She last held the position of "Supervising Administrative Officer" under the Budget Control and Project Monitoring Division at the Davao City Budget Office prior to becoming a staff member at the Office of the Vice President of the Philippines (OVP) in Mandaluyong when Duterte was elected vice president in 2022.

### Office of the Vice President

As Vice Presidential Staff Officer VI, Acosta was designated as a special disbursing officer (SDO) at the OVP. Due to the compartmentalized structure of the office, chief of staff Zuleika T. Lopez alleged that Acosta directly coordinated with vice president Duterte in the handling of the office's confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) without the mediation of the chief of staff, with Lopez denying any knowledge of how the CIF were used at the OVP.
In December 2022, Acosta withdrew ₱125 million in confidential funds from a branch of Land Bank along Shaw Boulevard in Metro Manila, placing them in duffel bags with the help of four security personnel. The eventual disbursement of this amount of funds by the OVP within 11 days was heavily scrutinized for its dubious utilization at an unusual rate, with it being initially questioned by the Commission on Audit and lawmakers during a plenary debate at the House of Representatives in September 2023 and later investigated during separate budget hearings conducted by the House Committee on Appropriations in August 2024 and the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability in September 2024 onwards. After the December 2022 withdrawal, Acosta would further withdraw the same amount of CIF three more times in the first three quarters of 2023 through Landbank, retrieving a total of ₱500 million in confidential funds for the OVP. By August 2024, COA issued a notice of disallowance for ₱73.2 million of the initial ₱125 million CIF that Acosta withdrew in 2022 due to a lack of proper documentation justifying its use, directing her and OVP chief accountant Julieta Villadelrey to settle the liability within six months.
On November 5, 2024, Acosta and six other OVP staff released a position paper asking the House Committee on Good Government to terminate its inquiry into their office's fund use, claiming that its hearings are "not in aid of legislation" and "violative of the rights of resource persons." Upon the committee's fifth budget hearing on November 11, Acosta and three other staff members of the OVP were cited in contempt for failing to attend their legislative inquiries, and were thus issued an arrest order for their detention at the House of Representatives.
Despite the arrest order, Acosta did not appear at the next hearing on November 20; OVP assistant chief of staff Lemuel G. Ortonio alleged that Acosta was "on the verge of a major emotional breakdown[...] and contemplating self-harm" the night before the hearing due to stress regarding her situation. Although she was absent from the November 20 hearing, the matter regarding her quarterly withdrawal and disbursement of confidential funds from 2022 to 2023 was covered by committee members and interpellated to the OVP staff present. Acosta's method of withdrawing confidential funds using duffel bags and without an armored vehicle was revealed at the hearing, and later criticized on X by former senator Leila de Lima, who likened its optics to a bank robbery and considered it "the essence of the OVP and DepEd's misuse of confidential funds."
Acosta started attending the budget hearings on November 25, where she began being interpellated past 4 p.m. by Rep. Gerville Luistro of Batangas's 2nd district. During the hearing, Acosta revealed that the confidential funds she withdrew from Land Bank were disbursed directly to Col. Raymund D. Lachica, chief of the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group (VPSPG), to handle further disbursement of the CIF as ordered by vice president Duterte, which Luistro asserted was a usurpation of authority prohibited under her designation as SDO. Acosta further testified that the accomplishment reports she prepared on the OVP's usage of the CIF were based mainly on the acknowledgment receipts (AR) and documents provided by Lachica. While Luistro was still interpellating her sometime past 6 p.m., Acosta fell ill from hypertension during a temporary suspension and was placed on a wheelchair to be moved to an ambulance accompanied by Duterte. She was soon sent to the Veterans Memorial Medical Center to undergo checkup.