A House of Representatives committee is looking at limiting agencies that could request secret funds, a congressman said on Monday.
Manila Rep. Joel R. Chua told reporters that the House good government and public accountability panel is considering restricting which government departments and agencies could request for Confidential and Intelligence Funds (CIF) amid controversies hounding Vice-President Sara Z. Duterte-Carpio.
“We see here a loophole in the law, which is why agencies that have nothing to do with intelligence gathering are being given confidential funds,” Mr. Chua, who heads the House good government and public accountability panel, said in Filipino.
“One of the things we are discussing here is to limit the agencies and departments of the government that will be given a confidential fund,” he added.
Ms. Carpio is being questioned by congressmen for her use of CIF, under the Office of the Vice-President (OVP) budget in 2022 and the Department of Education in 2023, when she sat as its secretary.
The OVP did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
State auditors told congressmen in August that they cannot account for the OVP’s P73-million CIF spending in 2022. Lawmakers are also looking at cash advances worth P112.5 million made by the Education department through three separate checks worth P37.5 million during the first three quarters of 2023.
“The monitoring [of confidential fund spending] has become somewhat lax, so that needs to be tightened, especially for departments that have nothing to do with [secret funds],” said Mr. Chua, noting that he finds the joint circular governing CIF use as “lacking.”
CIFs are meant to finance surveillance and intelligence information gathering activities, according to a 2015 joint circular between the Commission on Audit, Defense, Budget and Interior and Local Government departments.
The circular mandates CIF recipients to prepare a financial plan supporting their activities, but its audit reports are not made public. — Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio