Brosas urges COA: Don’t stop at OVP, audit all secret funds

Gabriela party-list Rep. Arlene Brosas

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Audit (COA) should not be satisfied with just auditing the confidential funds (CF) under the previous Office of the Vice President (OVP) budgets, as it should check all secret allocations, Gabriela party-list Rep. Arlene Brosas said.

Brosas said on Wednesday that having COA audit other agencies will be a win for transparency and accountability, as the secretive nature of CFs make it prone to misuse and abuse.

READ: Panel to COA: Submit audit reports on OVP, DepEd, including secret funds

According to the lawmaker, it is important to check the CF allocations within the OVP and the Department of Education (DepEd)—two agencies linked to Vice President Sara Duterte whose audit reports were subpoenaed by the House of Representatives—but other agencies must go through the same scrutiny.

READ: DBM: Confidential, intel funds for 2025 down 16%

“A subpoena was needed before COA could release the reports when in fact, the government should make it public considering it involves taxpayers’ money,” Brosas said, referring to fellow Makabayan bloc member ACT Teacher party-list Rep. France Castro whose motion to subpoena the documents was granted.

“These ‘secret funds’ are prone to misuse and corruption, and the difficulty in auditing such funds only underscores the need for their abolition,” he added.

READ: Marcos’ office retains P4.5-B confidential, intel fund for 2025 – DBM

According to Brosas, not even President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s offices should be spared from COA’s auditing of CFs.

While CF allocations under the 2025 National Expenditures Programs went down, Marcos’ office was able to retain the P4.5 billion CF and intelligence funds.

Not off the hook

“President Marcos Jr. is not off the hook. Yearly, secret funding for his office has been increasing, seemingly treating public funds like a personal wallet despite hardships and hunger across the country,” she said.

“The money of the people should be placed in services, and not to the government officials’ pockets. That’s why we are calling on Filipinos to register their appeals despite the shameless use of public funds,” she added.

COA, during the hearing of its proposed budget for 2025 before the House of Representatives’ committee on appropriations on Wednesday, was directed to submit audit reports involving OVP and DepEd, particularly for CF expenditures for 2022 and 2023.

Castro, who made the motion, said she understands that the secretive nature of the transactions bars COA from releasing reports, but these should be submitted to Congress as it has been a concern raised by the people.

Nueva Ecija Rep. Joseph Gilbert Violago and Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo—appropriations panel senior vice chair who was presiding over the hearing—initially decided that Castro’s motion will be tackled once deliberation of all agencies’ budgets were done.

However, Quimbo ultimately decided to act on Castro’s motion and require COA to submit its reports on OVP and DepEd.

The OVP, under Vice President Duterte, faced scrutiny in 2023 when the House was deliberating its budget for 2024, after it was revealed that the office spent P125 million worth of CF in just 11 days in 2022.

What aggravated the lawmakers’ concern was that the CF in 2022 did not exist under the original budget of the OVP, which was crafted when former Vice President Leni Robredo was still in office.

Eventually, the House decided to strip civilian agencies, OVP and DepEd included, of its CF requests for the 2024 budget—allocating these instead to agencies securing the West Philippine Sea. —with reports from Ysabel Escalona, trainee