MINORITY congressmen on Thursday criticized billions of pesos worth of confidential and intelligence funds in the proposed 2024 national budget, noting that these funds had been allotted to agencies that are not supposed to do intelligence work.
“Civilian offices and agencies with no business in intelligence-gathering or law enforcement are given so much presidential pork in the form of confidential and intelligence funds,” Deputy Minority Leader and Party-list Rep. France L. Castro said in a statement.
The budget for confidential and intelligence funds in the P5.77-trillion budget for next year increased by P120 million to P10.14 billion — P5.28 billion in intelligence and P4,86 billion in confidential funds.
Under the 2024 National Expenditure Plan, the Office of the President was given P4.5 billion, while the Office of the Vice President got P500 million in intelligence funds.
The Education department under Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio was also given P150 million in confidential and intelligence funds (CIF), while the Defense department got P1.7 billion.
In the 2023 national budget, the President received P4.5 billion in confidential and intelligence funds.
In a 2015 circular, the Commission on Audit (CoA) and several government agencies specified the guidelines on the use of confidential and intelligence funds. Congress does not audit these budgets.
Assistant Minority Leader and Party-list Rep. Arlene D. Brosas called out the President for failing to mention the intelligence funds in his budget message.
“It is best to rechannel these to relief and social services,” she said.
The Development Budget Coordination Committee will brief the House of Representatives committee on appropriations on Aug. 10.
Marikina Rep. Stella Luz A. Quimbo, vice-chairman of the committee, said the House targets to begin plenary debates on the budget on Sept. 18, and approve it on final reading by the end of that month.
If approved, a huge chunk of the proposed P10.14-billion CIF for next fiscal year would go to the offices of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio.
Budget Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman attributed the increase to additional confidential funds requested by the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), Anti-Money Laundering Council and Presidential Security Group (PSG).
She said the DICT needs the funds for its cyber-security programs, citing the government’s digitalization push.
“Cybersecurity investment is parallel to our digitalization efforts,” she told a news briefing. “Why does it need to be confidential? It’s because of the procurement process. You cannot disclose the technical specifications of your cyber-security projects in the terms of reference because hackers might see it.”
“If they have access to the specs, our cybersecurity projects and programs won’t be effective,” she added.
The PSG’s additional intelligence funds would cover intelligence activities during Mr. Marcos’ foreign trips, Ms. Pangandaman said.
The Department of Agriculture, which is also headed by Mr. Marcos, is asking for P50 million in confidential from zero this year.
In a separate statement, the Budget department said there was also an increase in the confidential and intelligence funds of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, National Security Council, Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity, and the Office of the Ombudsman.
On the other hand, the intel funds of the Philippine Competition Commission, National Intelligence Coordinating Agency and the Department of Justice decreased.
Meanwhile, Budget Undersecretary Joselito Basilio said borrowings that would be used for the 2024 national budget “would be 11% of the pie,” which is in line with the “medium term fiscal framework.”
The borrowing program for next year will hit P2.46 trillion — consisting of P606.85 billion in gross external borrowings and P1.853 trillion in gross domestic borrowings — higher than the P2.207-trillion borrowing program this year, according to DBM data.
The Philippine government expects its borrowings to decline as the country recovers from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr. Basilio told reporters after the briefing.
The borrowing will peak until 2025 or 2026, and will go down by 2027 and 2028, Mr. Basilio said.
The Philippine government’s outstanding debt hit P14.15 trillion at the end of June.
The Budget department, meanwhile, said the P2.93-billion budget cut for the University of the Philippines (UP) under the proposed 2024 expenditure plan would not affect student admissions.
The reduction was a result of the removal of budgetary requirements for several infrastructure projects that are set to be completed this year, Ms. Pangandaman told the briefing.
She said the agency had taken into consideration the budget utilization rate of the state university. “In our review and evaluation of UP’s budget proposals, we considered its absorptive capacity, which was 69.48% as of end-2022.” — B.M.D. Cruz and Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza