Senate oversight panel eyes review of COA-DBM circular on secret funds' utilization

Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri said on Saturday, Sept. 9, that the Senate Oversight Committee on confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs) is planning to review the memorandum circular on CIFs to come up with a more clean-cut set of guidelines on its utilization.

Zubiri was referring to the Joint Memorandum Circular (JMC) 2015- 01 issued by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), the Commission on Audit (COA),  the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), the Department of National Defense (DND), 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".

In an interview on DWIZ, the senator mentioned that this was through the suggestion of Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III that they should not only review the budgets of different government agencies but also revisit the JMC and find out if CIFs are being utilized correctly. 

"There might be another line item or work program within the budget na puwedeng lagyan yan (where than can be put)," Zubiri said, stating that some projects may not be needed to be placed under confidential funds.

When it comes to confidential funds, Zubiri stated that COA is not very thorough on it yet it still passes through the agency whereas they issue recommendations on it.

"We want to make sure that the guidelines are simplified. We want to make sure that the scope of CIFs are limited," he added.

Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero had also asked government agencies asking for CIFs under the 2024 national budget to submit their utilization plan.

“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 submission ng expenditure but they are only specific items that you can spend it on,” he said.

Zubiri said that they will issue recommendations to the plenary on how to go about this.