Power to examine intel funds under reform bill pushed

CONGRESS should include a provision in the proposed Budget Reform Act allowing it to review confidential and intelligence funds to ensure proper use, according to a political analyst.

“The proposed legislative oversight on the use of confidential funds can be integrated in the more comprehensive Budget Reform bill that seeks to strengthen the congressional power of the purse,” Francisco A. Magno, a political science and development studies professor at De La Salle University, said in an e-mail.

The bill seeks to institutionalize a cash-based budgeting system where all authorized allocations may only be released within each fiscal year.

Opposition congressmen in February filed the proposed Intelligence and Confidential Funds Transparency Act, which seeks to create a joint committee composed of members of the House of Representatives and Senate to audit confidential and intelligence funds.

“The oversight committee shall conduct a semiannual review of the status and implementation of all programs and activities financed by intelligence and confidential funds,” the congressmen said in House Bill 7158.

A 2015 joint circular between the Budget department, state auditors and several government agencies include guidelines on the use of confidential and intelligence funds. Under the rules, agencies must submit a report on how they plan to spend the money.

But the congressmen said the circular lacks safeguards because the “documents are subjected only to the most perfunctory of audits.”

The Budget reform bill is pending at the House committee level and is among the Marcos government’s priority measures eyed for approval by December.

Mr. Magno said the bill would help “strengthen legislative authority to review and approve appropriations based on clearly defined performance information and regular reports on accomplishments.”

Terry L. Ridon, a former congressman and convenor of think tank InfraWatch PH, said audit findings could still be disclosed for accountability.

“Audit findings may be disclosed, without compromising confidential information, such as implementing redactions on specific confidential information,” he said in a Viber message.

“With the joint circular and other congressional oversight initiatives to check confidential and intelligence fund spending, these mechanisms should be sufficient enough to balance the interest of confidentiality and accountability,” he said.

He added that only law enforcement and national security agencies should be entitled to confidential and intelligence funds.

Mr. Magno said agencies with peace and security mandates, as well as local governments facing peace and order challenges, should be entitled to the fund.

Congressmen on Oct. 10 stripped several agencies including the Office of the Vice President (OVP) of their confidential funds, transferring P1.23 billion worth of these funds to security agencies amid worsening tensions with China.

Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio had sought P500 million in confidential funds for her office and another P150 million for the Education department, which she also heads.

Earlier this month, she said anyone who opposes confidential funds opposes peace. “Whoever opposes peace is an enemy of the nation.”

The OVP under Ms. Duterte-Carpio spent P125 million in confidential funds last year, according to the Commission on Audit (CoA).

“It is high time for the government to rectify this unconstitutional mode of allocating intelligence and confidential funds that are free from audit, public scrutiny and official accountability,” the congressmen said in House Bill HB 7158. — Beatriz Marie D. Cruz