Albay 1st district Rep. Edcel Lagman has called on his fellow lawmakers in the 19th Congress to exercise caution in allocating confidential and intelligence funds to government agencies, specifically, to the Office of the President (OP).
Under the 2023 General Appropriations Bill (GAB), the OP was allocated P2.250 billion for its confidential funds, and P2.250 billion for its intelligence funds, for a total of P4.5 billion. Former President Rodrigo Duterte asked for the exact same amount during the last year of his tenure.
READ: https://mb.com.ph/2022/08/22/like-predecessor-pbbm-asks-for-p4-5b-worth-of-confidential-intel-funds/
Lagman grilled Navotas City lone district Rep. Toby Tiangco, sponsor of the OP budget, over the P4.5 billion confidential and intelligence funds.
“Congress must exercise–judiciously and frugally–the appropriation of confidential and intelligence funds because we cannot review the extent of their utilization, which is untouchable,” Lagman said during his interpellation of the OP budget at the plenary Wednesday, Sept. 28.
“The COA (Commission on Audit) informed this chamber that although it makes a post-audit of confidential and intelligence funds disbursement, it could not disclose the results of such audits because of the nature of confidentiality of said funds,” the Albay solon expained.
Lagman pointed out that the OP’s requested confidential and intelligence funds were much larger than the entire proposed budgets of the following agencies:
The Civil Service Commission (CSC) at P1.9 billion, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) at P833.7 million, the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) at P1.4 billion, the Department of Tourism (DOT) at P3.5 billion, the Office of the Press Secretary (OPS) at P1.5 billion.
He also said that the OP confidential and intelligence funds rivaled the budgets of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) at P4.9 billion, and the Office of the Ombudsman at P4.7 billion.
Lagman then cited Joint Circular 2015-101 of the COA, Department of Budget and Management (DBM), the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), and the Governance Commission for GOCC (GCG).
It mandates that “An agency requesting for confidential and intelligence funds must submit a physical and financial plan justifying their requests per project and program.”
Lagman then asked Tiangco if the OP had complied with the aforementioned circular and submitted the necessary physical and financial plans.
“I would like to apologize that I could not reply to that question because it is a question with regards to the disbursement of the confidential funds...The requisites are submitted prior to disbursement,” Tiangco said. He also added that the projects and plans of the OP only up to June 30, 2022 had been submitted.
However, Lagman said that the physical and financial plans should have been submitted before the allocation. “That is the import of the Joint Circular 2015-101,” he added.
Under the GAB, a total of P9,276,435,000 had been allocated to the confidential and intelligence funds of all government agencies. This is broken down into P4,957,627,000 for intelligence funds and P4,318,808,000 for confidential funds.
The OP’s ask makes up 48.5 percent of the P9.27 billion total.