Congress tightens use of CIF

Disallows transfer of contingent funds to intel funds under 2024 budget

The Senate has approved the proposed prohibition on the use of contingency funds to supplement the confidential funds in any government agency without the mandate of the national security and public safety sectors.

The disallowance was stated in the special provision that the Senate included in the approved version of the proposed P5.76-trillion national budget for next year.

Senator Risa Hontiveros pushed for this after it was discovered that the Office of Vice President used part of its contingent fund as a confidential fund.

In her testimony before the Senate during the budget deliberations for the OVP, Vice President Sara Duterte testified that the Office of the President transferred P221 million to her office last December 2022.

The OVP used a total of P125 million in confidential funds last year, and the Commission on Audit said this fund was used up by the OVP in just 11 days.

Meanwhile, confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) that were removed from civilian agencies in the 2024 national budget will not be restored by the bicameral conference committee, Senator Juan Edgardo Angara said Thursday.

As the committee met to reconcile disagreeing provisions in the House and Senate versions of the budget bill, Angara, chairman of the Senatefinance committee and leader of the Senate contingent, said the senators had adopted the House version that removed the CIF of civilian agencies.

He added that the senators shared the belief of the House that the CIF are just for national security agencies involved in intelligence and information gathering.

Senator JV Ejercito said the Senate and House had already completedtheir talks on the CIF and said he sees no reason to restore the funds to the government agencies that were stripped of them.

Congress has removed the CIF of five agencies in the 2024 budget.

These are the Office of the Vice President, Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), Department of Education, Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Foreign Affairs.

But Angara said the bicameral conference committee will tackle a request that the CFI of the DICT —worth about P280 million—be restored to improve cybersecurity.

“Sometimes the war is not on the battlefield, but someone can disable your…networks (and) our economy can come to a halt,” Angara said.

House panel chairman Rep. Elizaldy Co said they will study the issue.

Co, chair of the House committee on appropriations, appealed to his fellow legislators to adopt the substantial changes introduced by the House leadership that promote transparency in public spending,safeguard national security, ensure food sufficiency, and support apopulation still reeling from adverse effects of the pandemic.

Co defended the House-approved version of the budget bill, saying that “lawmakers tried to strike a balance in handling debts and allocatingfunds to pivotal government projects and programs while being mindful of the administrative capacity of various agencies to achieve budget objectives.”

The proposed budget for next year comes to P5.786 trillion, includingP1.748 trillion for debt payments and other expenditures that areautomatically appropriated. General appropriations increased 9.5 percent to P4.02 trillion from the 2023 budget while unprogrammed funds declined by 65 percent to P281.9 billion.

The House’s budget version “underscores the need for a comprehensivestrategy to enhance efficiency, transparency and accountability in program implementation,” said Co in his opening remarks of the bicameral committee meeting.

He said in addressing those challenges, the House version was craftedto be “a more cost-efficient intervention” that is aligned “with thetargets and goals for sustainable economic growth and public welfare” of the Marcos administration.

In line with that vision, the House version stripped variousgovernment offices, including the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education— both agencies led by Vice President Sara Duterte—of a total P1.23 billion in CIF and allocated them to frontline agencies in charge of monitoring and protecting thecountry’s territorial rights in the West Philippine Sea.

The House realigned the confidential funds and instead used them asadditional budget to the National Intelligence and Coordination Agency, P300 million; National Security Council, P100 million;Philippine Coast Guard, P200 million for ammunition and intelligenceactivities; and the Department of Transportation, P381.8 million asadditional budget for the upgrade and expansion of the airport in Pag-Asa Island.

Earlier, some media reports said some senators favor reinstating the CIF, particularly those for the OVP and DepEd. Co, leader of the House contingent, appealed to their Senate counterparts to “approach this endeavor with a spirit of unity and guided by the principles of transparency, accountability, and the unwavering pursuit of the common good.”

“Let us find a way to reconcile our differences, aligning them withthe overarching programs of the present administration,” he added.

House Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez also sought bipartisansupport for the 2024 appropriations bill, noting the changesintroduced by the House to the budget submitted by the Department of Budget and Management will address the need to increase foodproduction, shield poor consumers from rising prices of goods, and help enhance farmers’ and fishers’ income.

The House version allocated P20 billion for the rice subsidy program,P40 billion to improve irrigation and P1 billion for fisheries and post-harvest facilities.

“The national expenditure program passed by the House, not only addresses food production and combating food inflation, it is also investing more for the Filipino people and the future of this nation,” Romualdez said.

“We have set aside around P125 billion for medical assistance, livelihood assistance, job creation, and scholarship programs for deserving students—the future of this nation,” he added.

The House leader appealed to the bicameral conference committee to quickly craft a final version of the 2024 budget so it could be passed before Congress goes on Christmas break.

“We owe it to the Filipino people to pass a well-crafted budget on time to allow the government of President Marcos to immediately allocate those funds to help boost economic activity, draw more investments, create jobs and secure a better future for our people. We owe our constituents, the Filipino people, nothing less,” he added.

During the plenary debates, the Senate approved DICT’s P9.9 billion proposed 2024 budget, including its proposed CIF of P280 million. However, this was transferred as a regular line item, making it subject to scrutiny by the Commission on Audit.

The bicameral conference, Angara said, aims to approve the P5.768 trillion proposed 2024 budget within two weeks and for President Marcos to be able to sign the measure into law before he travels to Japan by mid-December.

Meanwhile, an opposition leader in the House of Representatives appealed to the House leadership to include a P31.57-billion fund to rehabilitate traditional jeepneys in the final version of the 2024 national budget.

Assistant Minority Leader and Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Arlene Brosas said that subsidizing the replacement of engines of over 63,000 public utility vehicle (PUV) units for 2024 “is a cheaper and more viable route than the costly, anti-people and pro-foreign PUV modernization program being forced [down] the throats of small operators and drivers.”

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