SENATORS plan to transfer excess confidential and intelligence funds of government agencies to the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) and National Security Agency (NSA), the Philippine Senate President Juan Miguel F. Zubiri said on Wednesday.

“We may get the confidential funds from other agencies that don’t necessarily need them and move them [to agencies] like the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency and police intelligence units,” he told a news briefing.

“We have a list of government agencies with confidential and intelligence funds, and we plan to review this list to see if we need to reduce these amounts,” he added.

Mr. Zubiri said a Senate oversight committee would propose confidential and intelligence funds for agencies in more detail in future meetings.

“The select oversight committee has the power to invite these agencies to explain to us [why they need confidential and intelligence funds],” he said.

The budgets of NICA, National Security Agency and National Security Council (NSC) would likely be increased, the senator said, citing the need to protect the country from cyber-attacks. He also said the Philippines is vulnerable to hacking.

The Philippines ranked 42nd out of 250 countries that were most affected by data breaches in the first quarter, with 48,747 leaked accounts, virtual private network service provider Surfshark said in a May report. This was down by 78.5% from 226,970 in the fourth quarter of last year.

Global cyber-security firm Kaspersky said in a report on April 17 web attacks targeting entities in the Philippines rose to 492,567 in 2022 from 382,940 a year earlier.

Under the proposed P5.76-trillion budget for 2024, NICA was given P1.432 billion, while NSC got P629.278 million.

Senators Aquilino Martin “Koko” D. Pimentel III, Ana Theresia “Risa” Hontiveros-Baraquel this week questioned why Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio needs P500 million in confidential and intelligence funds, larger than the Defense department’s request of P87 million and P1 million for NICA. 

“There is no good reason why the Office of the Vice President should have confidential fund allocations that are larger than the combined confidential budgets of our top security agencies,” Ms. Hontiveros-Baraquel told a Senate hearing.

Vice President Sara Z. Duterte-Carpio said the funds would be used for the “safe, secure and successful implementation” of her office’s socioeconomic projects and in intelligence gathering and projects supporting the Office of the President.

Ms. Hontiveros-Baraquel also questioned why the Department of Education, which Ms. Carpio heads, needs P150 million of the same funds, adding that intelligence-gathering efforts should be left to NICA and other law enforcement agencies.

The Office of the President was given P4.5 billion in intelligence funds, while the Department of Information and Communications Technology got confidential funds worth P300 million.

The budget for confidential and intelligence funds next year increased by P120 million to P10.14 billion — P5.28 billion in intelligence and P4.86 billion in confidential funds. — John Victor D. Ordoñez

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