BY WENDELL VIGILIA AND RAYMOND AFRICA
THE leadership of the House of Representatives yesterday belied former Presideent Rodrigo Duterte’s claim that it has its own confidential funds, saying all line items in the annual budget of the lower house is audited by the Commission on Audit (COA).
House Secretary General Reginald Velasco said that while the House, under the leadership of Speaker Martin Romualdez, agrees that government expenditures should be transparent and fully auditable, the former chief executive was wrong to accuse the House leadership of using confidential funds when he defended his daughter Vice President Sara Duterte from critics of the OVP’s confidential funds.
Senate Secretary Renato Bantug likewise denied that the Senate has a P331 million confidential fund for this year, saying that “social media posts are deliberately misleading and maliciously presented by some personalities who seek to malign and tarnish the reputation” of the upper house.
Bantug said that for 2023, the Senate has no allocation for confidential funds.
Citing Senate records, he said that under the upper house‘s Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE), there are three line items, “namely Confidential Funds, Intelligence Funds, and Extraordinary and Miscellaneous Expenses.”
“For 2023, only ‘Extraordinary and Miscellaneous Expenses’ has a line item amounting to P331,942,000. There are no line items for ‘Confidential Funds’ or ‘Intelligence Funds’,” he said.
He said the P331.9 million is used for meetings, seminars, conferences, public relations, education, and other activities of the upper chamber, among others.
Velasco, for his part, said: “The House has no confidential and intelligence funds. All line items in our budget are subject to regular accounting and auditing rules and regulations. Laging bukas po ang aming libro sa Commission on Audit (COA) (Our books are always to COA).”
Based on the latest COA report released just last October 2, Velasco said the House “has no disallowances, no notice of suspension and no notice of charge.”
“Ibig pong sabihin, pasado kami sa COA audit (It means, we’ve passed the COA’s audit),” said the House official.
In a press conference last Tuesday, House members denied allegations circulating in social media that the House has P1.6 billion in confidential under this year’s P5.268 trillion national budget.
Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo, senior vice chair of the House committee on appropriations, said that while confidential, intelligence, and extraordinary funds belong under the same category in the 2023 budget, the nature of extraordinary funds is different from confidential and intelligence funds.
The economist-lawmaker said the P1.6 billion item is actually for extraordinary expenses which is “fully auditable and is different from confidential and intelligence funds.” Quimbo said one use of the fund for extraordinary expenses is assistance during calamities.
Rep. Zaldy Co (PL, Ako Bicol), chairman of the appropriations committee who headed the small panel tasked to introduce amendments to the House’s version of the proposed 2024 budget, called the allegation “fake news.”
‘MOST ROTTEN’
The former president, in an interview on Tuesday night, accused Congress of being “the most rotten institution” in the country, saying he would demand an audit to expose how its members “squander” taxpayers’ money.
“Walang limit ‘yun ano nila diyan, ‘yung pork barrel, pati ‘yan si Romualdez, he’s wallowing (There is no limit to their, their pork barrel, pork barrel, even that Romualdez, he’s wallowing),” Duterte said.
The ex-president came out to defend his daughter Vice President Sara Duterte after lawmakers stripped the Office of the Vice President (OVP) of its proposed P500 million confidential funds under the P5.768 proposed national budget for 2024.
Duterte said that since Romualdez, who is a first cousin of President Marcos Jr. and former campaign manager of the Vice President in the 2022 national elections, wants to seek the presidency in the next elections, “he filled the bellies of House members.”
The elder Duterte accused the Speaker of being behind the attacks against the Vice President: “Hindi ko alam kung bakit inaano niya si Inday (I don’t know why he is attacking Inday.) Inday is perceived to be a good candidate. But I’m saying now Inday, as far as I’m concerned, should not run for president,” the ex-president said.
“Kung hindi ibigay sa atin yan (If the audit it will not be given to us), I’ll ask everybody from the farmer, the businessmen, to the Church people, to every Filipino, to every soldier and policeman, that will we all demand that we open the liquidation para malaman rin namin kung paano ninyo winaldas ang pera namin (so we will know how they squandered our money),” said the former president.
ROTC
The elder Duterte revealed that his daughter was planning to use the OVP’s confidential funds to revive the mandatory Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program in the country.
The Department of Education (DepEd), which Duterte also leads as concurrent education secretary, is proposing P150 million confidential funds for next year which is on top of the OVP’s P500 million.
Lawmakers have decided to retain the DepEd’s P150 million budget by realigning it to its Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASTPE), which, unlike confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs), can easily be audited by the COA.
They recommended the transfer of a total of P1.23 billion from the OVP and other agencies to the following: P300 million to the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA), P100 million to the National Security Council (NSC), P200 million to the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) for intelligence activities and ammunition, and P381.8 million to the Department of Transportation (DOTR) for airport development and the expansion of Pag-asa Island airport in the WPS, which is just part of its P3 billion total allocation.
Congressmen also converted the confidential funds of the following agencies into MOOEs: P30 million for the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), P25 million for DICT, P30 million for DFA, and P50 million for the Office of the Ombudsman.
REVERTED
Bantug said that in 2020, the Senate had P100 million in confidential funds, P100 million in 2021, and P50 million in 2022 “but all of these funds were never used and were reverted to the National Treasury in full.”
He said Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri is firm “that the Senate does not need confidential funds.”
He said the Senate Select Oversight Committee on Confidential and Intelligence Funds will continue to examine the CIFs of government agencies and will realign them accordingly to those who really need them.
Committee on Finance chairman Sen Juan Edgardo Angara said the Senate’s intelligence funds were to be spent to gather intelligence information and to be used for national security matters, while its “extraordinary” funds are for expenses incurred during committee hearings.
He said there was no confidential funds for 2023 and 2024.
“There was, I think 2021 and 2022 if I’m not mistaken. But then Senate President (Vicente) Sotto did not use them. Maybe they’re just standby funds, but he saw no use for them. That can be the case,” Angara said in a mix of Filipino and English in an interview with Senate reporters.
