A MILITANT lawmaker yesterday slammed a special provision in the annual General Appropriations Act (GAA) which requires the validation of audit findings of the Commission on Audit’s (COA) before these can be made public.
“Kinailangan pa ng subpoena sa COA para maglabas ng report gayong dapat naman talaga ilabas ‘yan ng gobyerno dahil pera ng taumbayan ang pinag-uusapan,” Brosas said in a statement (A subpoena was even needed for COA to release a report when the government should readily release it since it involves public funds),” said Rep. Arlene Brosas (PL, Gabriela).
Rep. France Castro urged the House to revisit the special provision cited by Brosas and pushed for its removal from the 2025 General Appropriations Act, saying it threatens the search for transparency and accountability.
Brosas’ statement came after the House Committee on Appropriations, during the budget hearing on the proposed 2025 allocation for COA on Tuesday, issued a subpoena requiring the agency to submit its audit reports on the confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) for fiscal years 2022 and 2023.
Prior to the issuance of the subpoena, COA chairman Gamaliel Cordoba said he could not discuss the findings in the audit reports because of the nature of the funds involved.
Castro and Brosas wanted to find out how the OVP under Vice President Sara Duterte spent the P125 million confidential funds that it received from the Office of the President in 2022 in just 11 days.
Brosas said “secret funds are prone to misuse and corruption” as she urged the COA to ensure that it will be able to audit all agencies with confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs).
Agencies with CIF file annual reports to the COA’s Intelligence and Confidential Fund Audit Office (ICFAO) since secret funds are not part of the agency’s regular audit.
Brosas cited what she said is the alarming allocation of CIF in the 2024 national budget, with the Office of the President receiving the highest allocation at P4.56 billion.
For next year, she noted that President Marcos Jr. is seeking an “unprecedented” total of P10.29 billion for these funds, broken down into P4.37 billion for confidential and P5.92 billion for intelligence purposes.
“President Marcos Jr. is not off the hook. Taon-taon, palaki nang palaki ang secret funds niya na para bang personal wallet ng administrasyon ang pondo ng mamamayan sa kabila ng matinding kahirapan sa bansa (Annually, his secret funds get bigger as if the people’s money is the personal wallet of the administration in the face of the widespread poverty in the country),” Brosas said.
‘DISCONNECTED’
At the Senate, deputy minority leader Risa Hontiveros said the country’s economic managers should get their acts together in coming up with a cohesive economic strategy, pointing to what she described as the “disjointed and disconnected” plans of the Department of Finance (DOF), Department of Budget and Management (DBM), and the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).
Hontiveros noted the different sets of priorities of the three agencies.
“In the first DBCC (Development Budget Coordination Committee) hearing (last Tuesday), Finance Sec. (Ralph) Recto said they have four priorities. But NEDA Sec. (Arsenio) Balisacan said they have six, while Budget Sec. Amenah Pangandaman said they have eight priorities,” Hontiveros said in Filipino.
“That’s a clear disconnect. The DBCC, which is tasked with overseeing our economy and fiscal policy, must function as a cohesive unit and not a set of departments planning on their own,” she said.
She stressed it is important for the economic team to be more aligned in their strategic priorities for the country’s economy since this will serve as a guide for lawmakers during the budget process.
“Alam naman natin, pagdating dito sa budget (We all know that when it comes to the budget), we shouldn’t be running in different directions. We don’t want to be pulled from all sides. Our economic team must tighten its strategies, define concrete results of these strategies and use every precious peso to achieve these results,” she said.
“They also need to advise the President when the budget has already gone adrift and unmoored from the Philippine Development Plan that his Cabinet formulated. Kailangan klaro kung saan tayo talaga patungo (We must have a clear direction). The welfare of our kababayan (countrymen) is at stake — which is why the DBCC must be clear on its priorities,” Hontiveros added.
PHILHEALTH
Sen. Grace Poe, chairperson of the Committee on Finance, said the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) should pay for the arrears of the health workers who served during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“With its increasing income annually, PhilHealth should now shoulder the remaining payables of the government to our health workers,” Poe said.
Poe made the recommendation after Finance Secretary Ralph Recto presented figures of PhilHealth’s growing net income.
In 2019, PhilHealth earned around P4 billion, which jumped to P30 billion in 2020, to P48 billion in 2021, and P79 billion in 2022.
Recto said that PhilHealth is projected to have a net income of more than P61 billion by the end of the year.
“Kinukuha na natin sa PhilHealth ngayon ang dapat napunta na sa ating health workers noon pa. Inaasahan din natin na patuloy na magiging efficient at madadagdagan ang benepisyon ng ating mga kababayan mula sa PhilHealth (We are getting from PhilHealth what should have been long given to our health workers. We also expect that PhilHealth will continue to be efficient and add benefit packages to our countrymen),” she said. — With Raymond Africa
