Office of the Vice President has no intelligence funds, says Robredo

MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Leni Robredo clarified Sunday that her office did not have intelligence funds.

Robredo made the remark following the release of the 2019 Annual Financial Report of the Commission on Audit (COA), which included the list of government offices that used the highest amount of confidential, intelligence, and extraordinary and miscellaneous funds (CIF).

According to Robredo, the report noted that the Office of the Vice President was the lowest spender among the government agencies at P547,000.

She clarified, however, that the spending of her office did not use intelligence funds.

In her weekly AM radio program, “BISErbisyong Leni,” she said that on reading the report she immediately asked her staff, speaking in Filipino: “Do we have an intelligence fund? I didn’t know we had an intelligence fund.”

They said no.

“We have no intelligence fund,” Robredo said in her program.

The P547,000 indicated the report, she said, was “by-law allowances” that her office had no part in deciding.

“[These are] allowances that, by law, are given to employees,” she said. “So they these were under extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses.”

These expenses were broken down in the report as they were legally mandated, she said.

COA earlier released a list of CIF top spenders in its 2019 Annual Financial Report. Based on the list, the Department of National Defense (DND) spent P3.087 billion of CIF funds, ranking next to Congress

COA has clarified, however, that Congress ha=d no confidential and intelligence funds and that the P3.980 billion it used in 2019 was for miscellaneous expenses.

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