Angara on resuscitating confidential, intel funds in bicam: ‘I don’t think so’

Senator Sonny Angara doesn’t think that the confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) that were stripped under the 2024 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) would be restored during the ongoing bicameral conference committee meetings.

Angara, who chairs the Senate Committee on Finance, made the statement as he led the Senate contingent in discussing the disagreeing provisions of House and Senate versions of the P5.768-trillion GAB on Thursday, Nov. 30 at the start of the Bicameral Conference Committee meetings at the Manila Golf and Country Club in Makati City.

Earlier, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III floated the idea that the confidential funds that Vice President Sara Duterte gave up could be restored. He stated that the bicam has the power to introduce anything.

In relation to this, Angara has also confirmed that the Senate’s version of the GAB adopted Senator Risa Hontiveros’ proposal to prohibit the use of contingent funds in augmenting the CIF of civilian agencies.

“Ang napag-uusapan lang I think is Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) kasi for increased cybersecurity dahil alam natin yung giyera minsan hindi na sa (because we know that war sometimes is no longer on the) battlefield, hindi na barilan (it’s no longer shooting) kundi someone can disable your cyber networks pag nawala yung information, tayo yung consumers, nagta-transact tayo online, pag nawala yun, pilay tayo (if information is lost, we the consumers, we transact online, if we lose that, we’ll be crippled),” Angara said.

“Our economy will come to a hold. DICT is appealing na ibalik sana (to hopefully return) a portion of their confidential fund,” he added.

Regarding the possible amount that they will give to DICT, Angara said that they’re consulting with the vice chair in charge of DICT, which was Senator Grace Poe.

“We’re trying to get her feedback also if she’s amenable to that. Tayo we respect the opinions or the views of our vice chairs. We’ll consult with her and we’ll update you,” he said.

Poe realigned DICT’s supposed confidential funds to the regular line item and removed P20 million from the initial P300 million that the agency had after for.

Senator JV Ejercito said that the Senate has been very consistent in providing CIF to agencies that are usually given such as the Department of National Defense (DND) the Philippine National Police (PNP), the Department of Justice (DOJ) since its purpose is to buy information.

Meanwhile, regarding the agencies stripped of CIF, Angara said that they adopted the move of the House of Representatives to realign the amount to security agencies.

It can be recalled that the House stripped the Office of the Vice President (OVP) of its confidential funds under the P5.768-trillion spending plan for 2024. Also stripped of confidential funds were the Department of Education (DepEd), the Department of Agriculture (DA), and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

The “small committee” tasked to collate individual amendments of House members to the 2024 GAB had recommended that a total of P1.23 billion in confidential funds be realigned in the budget measure.

On the other hand, the CIF of the Office of the President (OP) was unchanged.

“Ang maganda diyan hindi naman namin dinagdagan so kung ano yung level, kahit lumalaki yung budget ay hindi namin nilakihan yung mga confidential funds…ni-realign namin sa security agencies dahil we share their view na doon talaga dapat sa intelligence gatherers and providers (What’s good there is that we didn’t increase the amount so the level, even though the budget got bigger, we did not increase the confidential funds…we realigned the security agencies because we share their view that it should go to intelligence gatherers and providers),” he added.

The senator said that both the upper and lower chambers have a lot more to reconcile with only two weeks left in the plenary sessions. Angara stated that they aim to finish by Dec. 13 or 14 or before President Marcos leaves for Japan.

The senators who are attending the bicameral meetings for the GAB are Senate President Pro Tempore Loren Legarda; Senators Pia Cayetano, Imee Marcos, Cynthia Villar, Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa, Sherwin Gatchalian, Christopher “Bong” Go, Nancy Binay, Grace Poe, Mark Villar, Francis Tolentino, Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito, Jinggoy Estrada; and Senate Deputy Minority Leader Risa Hontiveros.