HOTSPOT

For the rest of us who have always been told by government officials “walang pera” when we inquire about social services, the revelations about confidential and intelligence funds give us a feeling of being lied to, defrauded or scammed.

The figures are staggering. President Duterte asked for ₱2.5-billion for 2017, ₱2.5-billion for 2018, and yet another ₱2.5-billion for 2019. When the pandemic kicked in, Duterte asked for ₱4.5-billion for 2020, ₱4.5-billion for 2021, and still another ₱4.5-billion for 2022 according to COA reports.

That’s a staggering ₱21-billion. While people lost jobs and livelihood (like the jeepney drivers for instance), and thousands didn’t know how to pay for the hospitalization, cremation and inurnment of their pandemic dead, the president sat on a ₱13.5-billion kitty from 2021-2022.

Both houses of Congress approved all these because, in their own words, they have the tradition of approving the budgets for the offices of the president and vice president as “a courtesy due to the office.”

Elsewhere in the country, the city council of Davao approved the following amounts for “confidential spending”: ₱294-million for 2017, ₱420-million for 2018, and ₱460-million each for 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. That’s a grand total of ₱2.554 billion.

In comparison to the approved confidential and intelligence funds for President Duterte and Mayor-turned-Vice President Sara Duterte, the Philippine Coast Guard meanwhile could only be given ₱10-million in intelligence funds every year since 2009.

The sum total of ₱150-million PCG intelligence funds for the past 15 years is equivalent to only a year’s request by Vice President Duterte for her confidential and intelligence funds as DepEd secretary.

The outrage is thus justified. These are not personal funds of members of Congress or the Davao councilors, which they could just appropriate on a whim or as a “courtesy”. These are public funds, pooled mainly from taxes paid by the public and huge loans to be paid for also by the public. People have a right not just to ask questions, but to a full accounting how each peso is spent.

It is really sad that Congress refused to allow members to ask questions about the details of the presidential and vice presidential budget, and that the House and Senate committees instead proudly report about the “record speed” of their approval. The budget hearings are a missed opportunity for Congress to restore its own “power of the purse”: to control government spending and to hold government to account for previous spending. It is supposed to be one way for Congress to help govern the nation.

That the House has belatedly decided to delete the confidential and intelligence funds of the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education, among others, is a step in the right direction. It was apparently in response to the uproar from the public. But we have to be vigilant because these could still be restored in the bicameral committee.

What could possibly explain this explosion of confidential and intelligence funds?

Some infer that it could be a way of going around the voiding and abolition of congressional and presidential pork barrel in 2013 and 2014.

Ten years ago, in the face of mammoth anti-pork barrel protests rocking Congress and the Aquino administration, the Supreme Court declared the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) as unconstitutional and abolished it.

In its verdict, the unanimous court decision also said: “[T]he Court hereby declares as UNCONSTITUTIONAL: ... (e) the phrases (1) “and for such other purposes as may be hereafter directed by the President” under Section 8 of Presidential Decree No. 910 and (2) “to finance the priority infrastructure development projects” under Section 12 of PD 1869, as amended by PD 1993, for both failing the sufficient standard test in violation of the principle of non-delegability of legislative power.”

Eight years ago, the court also voided and abolished the presidential pork called Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP). The decision, later affirmed on appeal, banned the “the allotment of funds for projects, activities, and programs not outlined in the General Appropriations Act”.

Then-Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin penned the latter court decision. He is now the president's Executive Secretary.

But this same excuse — of making use of confidential and intelligence funds for discretionary spending — could make those who asked for, approved and implemented the confidential and intelligence funds liable for violating laws on public funds, and even possibly plunder.

It is up to the public to defend public funds, and hold accountable those who hide expenditures from the public.