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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider Use of aliases on confidential funds receipts illegal — Colmenares

Use of aliases on confidential funds receipts illegal — Colmenares

Published Jul 11, 2025 01:36 pm

At A Glance

  • It is actually illegal to use aliases on the receipts of confidential funds, contrary to the claims of impeached Vice President Sara Duterte.
It is actually illegal to use aliases on the receipts of confidential funds, contrary to the claims of impeached Vice President Sara Duterte.
Former Bayan Muna representative and human rights lawyer Neri Colmenares made this assertion on Friday, July 11, as he cited the contents of joint Commission on Audit (COA) and Department of Budget Management (DBM) circular 2015-1.
As Duterte continued to justify the use of aliases to identify the recipients of millions worth of confidential funds, Colmenares said the law requires a government employee to submit proof of payment and attest to the proper spending of public funds before the Intelligence and Confidential Fund Accounting Unit (ICFAU), upon authorization by the COA Chairman.
"Even confidential funds are subject to audit," Colmenares said.
He then warned that accepting Duterte’s justification would set a dangerous precedent for government accountability.
Colmenares said allowing this as a defense would mean that "billions of pesos in confidential funds could very well be stolen and the identity of the perpetrators would remain unknown".
“This was done in the Napoles ​P10​-[billion] scam where fake names and names from the phone directory were used as supposed beneficiaries of billions of pesos when in fact they did not receive a single centavo of ayuda," he said.
In December 2023, Colmenares, along with representatives from the Makabayan bloc, filed a 34-page petition before the Supreme Court (SC) questioning the constitutionality of the P125-million confidential funds received by Vice President Duterte’s office in 2022.
The petition s​ought to declare the release and use of the funds “unconstitutional and void", and call​ed on COA to fully audit the funds and order their return to the government. ​
​"Public officials must be held to the highest standards of transparency. Using fake names in financial documents is not only illegal, it is a gross insult to the Filipino people who demand accountability for every centavo of public money​," he said.
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