Sen. Sonny Angara, chairperson of the Committee on Finance (Voltaire Domingo/ Senate PRIB)
MANILA, Philippines — Senator Sonny Angara has allayed fears of possible abuse in using billions of pesos of confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) allotted to various government agencies next year, saying Congress and the state auditor will closely examine these.
Congress ratified the final version of the P5.268-trillion national budget for 2023 containing the controversial CIF amounting to P9.3 billion on Monday.
Angara, chairman of the Senate committee on finance, explained that the scrutiny of the CIFs is guaranteed by law through the General Appropriations Act (GAA), the initiative of the Senate, and as part of the mandate of the Commission on Audit.
Under the GAA, he said, there is a provision requiring the grantees of CIFs to submit regular reports to both houses of Congress and the President.
Confidential fund recipient agencies and offices, on the other hand, are required to submit quarterly accomplishment reports to the President and the two Houses of Congress, the senator said.
In the case of the intelligence funds, Angara said, the quarterly reports are submitted to the President.
“On top of this, the Senate, through Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri has initiated the creation of a select oversight committee to look into the use of the funds. These are in place to ensure the proper use of these funds,” the senator pointed out.
“There will be periodic meetings of the select oversight committee to assess whether these funds are being used wisely by the agencies involved,” he added.
The creation of the oversight committee to look into the use of the CIF has been done since the 10th Congress.
COA, meanwhile, is still mandated to look into the use of the CIF, but unlike their regular audits, Angara said the results are not made public.
“Because of the nature of these funds, since they are linked to national security, safety, counter-terrorism, you cannot just expose these publicly. They are linked to certain things that are established to be essential to the safety of our people, to the existence of the State, etc.,” he explained.
The same goes for the work of the Senate’s oversight committee, which Angara said has to be kept confidential because of the sensitivity of the issues being examined.
“Little is known about these funds but in the process we learn that there are disallowances on the use of these funds. For instance, you cannot use it to pay salaries and to buy certain things,” he said.
“COA has also historically been looking at these expenses and there are limitations to its use, unlike the common perception that these funds can be used for anything and everything. That is not true,” Angara added.
As chairman of the Senate panel to the bicameral conference committee meetings on the 2023 budget, Angara said he fought to maintain the amendments made by the Senate, including the adjustments made to the CIFs.
However, their representatives from the House of Representatives “were adamant on restoring what was contained in the National Expenditure Program.”
“And with a deadlock looming because of the CIFs, compromises had to be made in order to avoid delays in the passage of the GAA,” Angara said.
“You’re working against the clock here because you don’t want to have a reenacted budget. We’ve seen in past when there have been delays that these had an adverse impact on our economic growth figures. That’s how important government spending is to the performance of the economy.”
“In the time of the pandemic, when the country, the economy is still recovering, the passage of a budget that is responsive, that spends on the right things and productive enterprises is very important,” the senator stressed.