SENATE President Juan Miguel Zubiri yesterday said confidential funds in the proposed 2024 national budget allocated to government agencies which do not need the funding will be slashed and realigned by the Senate.
Zubiri made the statement after the Senate Select Oversight Committee on Confidential and Intelligence Funds (CIFs) started its review of how government agencies spent their CIFs for the years 2022 and 2023.
He said how these agencies spent their respective CIFs will serve as a basis on whether to either remove, reduce, grant, or increase their requests in the 2024 budget.
Zubiri said members of the oversight committee are now more discerning in examining the disbursement and expenditure of secret funds following the observation of various sectors on the supposed unfair provision of confidential funds especially to civilian agencies which are not directly involved in gathering intelligence information.
He, however, cannot yet identify which agencies will be affected with the rigid assessment since the oversight committee only held its organization meeting on Wednesday.
“Well, ‘yung banat ng tao sa atin ngayon, sa gobyerno, ‘yung complaints and of course ‘yung comments ng napakaraming tao na bakit napakaliit ng intelligence fund ng intelligence agencies and nadagdagan pa ‘yung mga civilian agencies na hindi naman tama.
So, that’s part of the review that we will be doing (Well, the people are criticizing us, the government, they are complaining, making comments on why the intelligence funds of intelligence agencies are smaller compared to [the confidential funds of] civilian agencies, which is not right. So, that’s part of the review that we will be doing),” Zubiri said in a press conference.
He cited as example an agency, which he did not identify, which spent its appropriated confidential funds for the relocation of informal settler families (ISFs). Zubiri said senators will carefully study if the agency still deserves to get its requested confidential fund for next year.
He did not disclose the name of the agency so as not to violate the classified nature of the confidential fund allocation.
“Now it is up to us to decide kung tama ba ang paggamit nila doon, but it looks like that the mood of the committee will remove the intel funds being requested by that agency next year (Now it will be up to us to decide if that agency spent the budget properly. But it looks like that the mood of the committee is to remove the intel funds being requested by that agency next year),” Zubiri said.
Zubiri said the slashed allocation for an agency will be given to agencies whose intelligence funds need to be increased, such as the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA), the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) , the Philippine National Police (PNP), and the National Security Council (NSC).
Under the proposed 2024 national budget, the CIFs allocated to the Department of National Defense is only P97 million while NICA is given P341.2 million.
On the other hand, the Department of Education (DepEd) has been allocated P150 million and the Office of the Vice President given P500 million in confidential funds. The Office of the President will get P4.56 billion in CIFs.
Zubiri said the NICA and NSC will need additional intelligence funds to beef up the fight against cybercrimes. He said the AFP will also need additional intelligence funds for its Cybersecurity Division for the same purpose.
“The Philippines is very vulnerable to cyber hacks and cyberattacks. Wala tayong cyber security backbone. They’re requesting it from us now in this budget, so we are inclined to support them. The budget na matatapyas baka doon namin ilagay for the creation of the cyber security division (The Philippines is very vulnerable to cyber hack and cyberattacks.
We don’t have a cybersecurity backbone. They’re requesting it from us now in this budget, so we are inclined to support them. The budget that will be slashed will be allotted for the creation of the cyber security division),” he said.
More than 25 government agencies have asked for CIFs in their respective proposed budgets for next year, which the Department of Budget and Management said totals to P10.14 billion.
Next year’s proposed CIFs increased by P120 million from P10.02 billion in 2023 since additional funds were requested by the Department of Information and Communications Technology, the Anti-Money Laundering Council, and the Presidential Security Group.
Under the 2024 National Expenditure Program, around P4.86 billion will be allotted for confidential funds, while P5.28 billion for intelligence funds.
SPENDING PLAN
Sen. Francis Escudero said government agencies requesting for CIFs should submit their detailed spending plan to ensure accountability but “without violating the confidential nature of the funds.”
He said the spending plan should be in accordance with Joint Memorandum Circular (JMC) 2015-01 issued by the Department of Budget and Management, the Commission on Audit, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Department of National Defense, and the Governance Commission for the GOCCs (GCG) on January 8, 2015 which prescribed “guidelines on the entitlement, release, use, reporting and audit of confidential and/or intelligence funds.”
Based on the JMC, confidential fund refers to the lump-sum amount provided as such in the General Appropriations Act for National Government Agencies, in appropriation ordinances for local government units, and in the corporate operating budgets (COBs) for government owned and controlled corporations, for their confidential expenses.
Intelligence expenses, on the other hand, refer to those related to intelligence information gathering activities of uniformed and military personnel and intelligence practitioners that have direct impact on national security.
The funds are not to be used for payment of salaries and wages, overtime pay, additional compensation, allowance or other fringe benefits of officials and employees, representation/ entertainment expenses, consultancy fees and construction or acquisition of buildings or housing structures.
“There are specific rules as to where this can be spent, how this can be spent, and to disabuse the mind of people that this is like a secret fund, it is not. Secret ‘yung (The) submission ng (of the) expenditure (is secret) but they are only specific items that you can spend it on,” Escudero said.
‘STICK TO MANDATE’
Senate deputy minority leader Risa Hontiveros said the DepEd should just fulfill its basic mandate of providing accessible, equitable and quality basic education rather than using its resources to surveilling learners, teachers, and non-teaching staff using its P150 million confidential funds.
Hontiveros made the remark after Vice President Sara Duterte, who is the concurrent education secretary, admitted during the hearing last Monday on the proposed budget for 2024 of the DepEd that among the target of surveillance operations are learners, teachers, non-teaching staff of the department.
“I wish to remind the DepEd that the government has the primordial duty of fostering an environment of freedom and dignity for our young students based on both local and international laws. Keeping our children safe includes keeping them away from the potential abuse associated with state surveillance,” she said in a statement.
“I reiterate my call to reallocate the DepEd’s proposed confidential budget of P150 million – which is larger than the proposed P101 million confidential budget of the Department of National Defense (DND) – and for DepEd to focus on fulfilling its basic mandate of providing accessible, equitable and quality basic education,” she added.
Hontiveros has earlier said that the OVP’s requested P500 million confidential funds is bigger than the P438.2 million confidential and intelligence funds allocated for both the DND and NICA.
She said “there is something fundamentally wrong” when an agency not directly involved in intelligence information gathering asks for higher confidential funds than agencies involved in intelligence gathering.
The Senate minority bloc has earlier questioned why the OVP and DepEd want to have confidential funds when these agencies are not directly doing intelligence works.
‘PRESIDENTIAL PORK’
The militant Makabayan bloc yesterday slammed President Marcos Jr.’s grant of P125 million in confidential funds last year to Vice President Duterte without congressional approval, saying it is a source of corruption that must be abolished.
“If this is not how the OP (Office of the President) and agencies understand the contingent fund, then we have a dangerous, corruption-rife situation where we give billions of taxpayers’ money to the President yearly for no-holds-barred spending of just about anyone in government,” the Makabayan lawmakers said in a joint statement.
The members of the militant bloc are party-list Reps. France Castro of Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), Arlene Brosas of Gabriela and Raoul Manuel of Kabataan.
The lawmakers said that since the Executive sourced the amount from the P7 billion Contingent Fund, fund transfer to a non-existent item in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) or the national budget “may involve violations of the Constitution and other laws.”
Makabayan insisted that the President’s contingent fund, like the other huge lumpsums in the budget under his control, is just “presidential pork.”
Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin on Wednesday said the President approved the release of P221.424 million in additional Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) from the 2022 contingent fund for Duterte’s new programs in 2022.
Bersamin said that of the amount, P96.424 million was for “financial assistance/subsidies” while P125 million was confidential funds “for newly created satellite offices” of the OVP.
The Makabayan bloc however said the contingent fund, as stated in the 2022 GAA, is authorized for specific extraordinary cases such as “legal obligations, requirements of newly created offices, or deficiencies in the appropriations for presidential travels, and similar cases.”
“It does not grant unlimited authority for the President to allocate funds for any purpose, including confidential expenses,” said the militant lawmakers, who protested the House Committee on Appropriations’ abrupt termination of the budget hearing on the OVP’s 2024 budget last week.
They said CIFs require “explicit congressional authorization (because) otherwise, the President would be able to grant himself or other agencies under the executive branch confidential and intelligence funds at will using the Contingent Fund.”
“P125 milyon ang nagastos – walang public audit. Walang mata ng publiko na pwedeng makasilip kung saan at kanino talaga napunta (P125 million was spent without public audit.
No public eye can look where it and to whom it went),” the Makabayan said.
The militant lawmakers said the Executive Secretary “appears to be grasping at straws and straining credulity in an attempt to justify the release of confidential funds to the Vice President.”
They said the OVP needs to explain how its satellite offices were able to spend the whole amount of P125 million in confidential activities in the last 19 days of December, as reported in the OVP’s own quarterly financial statement which the Commission on Audit (COA) earlier reported.
“In this light the Makabayan bloc calls for the abolition of the untransparent confidential funds because it is prone to abuse. Upholding the principles of transparency, accountability, and proper allocation of public funds is crucial in ensuring good governance and protecting the welfare of the Filipino people. There is no place for secrecy when it comes to the people’s hard-earned money,” the Makabayan bloc said. — With Wendell Vigilia
