THE House Committee on Appropriations yesterday ordered the Commission on Audit (COA) to submit to the panel 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.
On the motion of members of the militant Makabayan bloc, the panel issued a subpoena duces tecum during the hearing on COA’s proposed P13.4 billion budget for 2025 after chairman Gamaliel Cordoba said he could not discuss the findings of the audit reports because of the nature of the funds involved.
Cordoba made it clear, however, that the COA would furnish the panel copies of the audit reports if the motion of Rep. France Castro (PL, ACT) to issue a subpoena duces tecum to the COA is approved.
“We already have audit actions and findings on the liquidation report submitted to us (by the OVP),” Cordoba told the panel, responding to Castro who repeatedly urged him to disclose the findings.
Castro and fellow Makabayan bloc member Rep. Arlene Brosas (PL, Gabriela) particularly 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.
The militant lawmakers also wanted to know badly if notices of disallowance were issued against the OVP by the COA, especially since the P125 million came from the Office of the President and not from the OVP’s 2022 budget, which was crafted when former vice president Leni Robredo was still in office.
The budget hearing, which was presided over by Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo, a senior vice chair of the appropriations panel, deferred action on the motion pending the COA’s presentation.
The committee, however, later approved the motion and the motion of Rep. Raoul Manuel (PL, Kabataan), also of the Makabayan bloc, for the panel to subpoena the COA’s audit on the DepEd’s confidential funds for 2023.
“The chair is now ready to rule. By virtue of the oversight power of the committee on appropriations, the motion to issue a subpoena duces tecum requiring COA to submit the audit report of the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education and the use of the confidential funds for fiscal year 2022, 2023, hearing no objections, the motion is carried,” Quimbo said.
The COA said the posting of annual audit findings on its website has also been delayed because of a special provision in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) requiring validation of its findings before it can be made public.
Makabayan bloc lawmakers urged the panel to study the provision, saying it could hamper the government’s campaign for transparency and accountability because the audit reports on an agency budget for the previous year, according to the COA, will only be posted in December instead of June.
“This is very important,” said Brosas, who initially wanted the approval of COA’s budget to be deferred until the audit reports are submitted to the panel. “We rely on that when there’s a corruption issue and if it’s not immediately uploaded, we’ll have to means for transparency.”
In the Senate, Sen. Risa Hontiveros warned against the “de-prioritizing” of proposed budget allocations to unprogrammed appropriations as she called for a full transparency in the bicameral conference committee deliberations on the proposed 2025 national budget
In her manifestation during the first day of the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) briefing on the proposed P6.352 trillion national budget for next year, Hontiveros noted that a huge chunk of the proposed budget under the 2024 National Expenditure Program (NEP) was slashed in the consolidated bicameral conference committee report.
“Ang nangyari sa bicam ay malaking tipak ng budget na nasa NEP 2024 at inaprubahan natin dito sa Senado ang nawala sa programmed appropriations. Isinantabi ito at inilipat sa low priority na unprogrammed appropriations (What happened during the bicam was that a big chunk of the budget under the NEP 2024 which we approved here in the Senate, disappeared in the programmed appropriations. They were set aside and re-aligned to the unprogrammed appropriations),” Hontiveros said.
As a result, she said the low priority unprogrammed appropriations ballooned from P282 billion to P731 billion.
“At isinantabi nga dito ang mga mahahalagang mungkahing budget ng Presidente (The important budget proposals of the President were sidelined),” she added.
Hontiveros said the Department of Finance is “raiding” government corporations with “sleeping funds” apparently to fund priority programs which were placed under unprogrammed funds.
She said the same “mistake” should not be repeated when they pass the 2025 proposed national budget.
“Now, I hope we do not make this mistake again of de-prioritizing hundreds of billions of funds proposed by the President and already approved by both the House and the Senate,” Hontiveros said.
To prevent similar incidents, Hontiveros said she has recommendations she hopes Sen. Grace Poe, chairperson of the Committee on Finance, and members of the panel “can find to be reasonable.”
“First, the bicam should return to the original practice of a full face-to-face meeting and deliberations of all members of the bicam, even as certain issues may be left to the discretion of the chairs,” she proposed.
“Second, the full bicam report, including how it deviates from the Senate version of the GAB (General Appropriations Bill), should be made available to all senators before it is reported to the plenary by the committee,” she also said.
For her part, Poe said the “staggering increase” for Personnel Services (PS) and Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) in the 2025 proposed national budget is a “red flag.”
Poe said that she and Sen. Cynthia Villar observed that the 65.8 percent allotted for PS and MOOE in the proposed national budget “is way above” the 55 percent traditionally allocated in the NEP.
“With the huge chunk eaten up by the PS and MOOE, only a third is left for capital expenditures and other projects that could bring real impact on the people,” Poe said.
According to the DBCC, PS accounts for 27.7 percent of the proposed budget or around P273 billion, while MOOE ate up 38.1 percent of the budget or P145 billion.
Capital outlays were allotted 20.9 percent share of the proposed budget, while Financial Expenses got 13.4 percent.
Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said the financial assistance extended by the government to poor families was included in the PS and MOOE budgets, to which Villar said should not be the case.
Poe and Villar said the Department of Budget and Management should review this.
“That is a project, that is not PS and overhead. PS and overhead and personnel service (are) really different from projects… kaya ayusin mo ito kung ganon. Kasi parang napasobra nito… Yung ayuda is not operating expenses (You have to fix this because it seems too much…Ayuda [financial assistance] is not operating expenses),” Villar said.
Poe said “we can always move it” during the budget deliberations.
“We will go over this budget with a fine-tooth comb to have a spending plan that will have an impact on the lives of our people, especially the poor who need genuine services most,” she said. — With Raymond Africa
