Ombudsman Samuel Martires —Inquirer photo/Lyn Rillon
MANILA, Philippines — Similar to what he said in 2023, Ombudsman Samuel Martires still prefers to have zero confidential funds for his office in the 2025 proposed national budget to avoid raising doubt as to where the allotment goes.
Martires said this during the House appropriations budget hearing of the antigraft agency on Tuesday after ACT Teachers party-list Rep. France Castro questioned him about his office’s utilization of the confidential funds in 2023.
“May I reiterate that you can just make it again P1 million if you like. Or if you like, you can make it a zero. I am not interested in the confidential funds. I am more interested in the budget for personal services and the capital outlay, not on the confidential funds,” he stressed.
According to Martires, P51 million in confidential funds was the original proposal for the 2024 budget. He explained that it was reduced to P1 million upon the request of the Ombudsman, while P31 million was allotted for 2023.
READ: Office of the Ombudsman ‘can survive’ without confidential funds – Martires
“It seems like having confidential funds paints a picture of it being used for other things. I do not want my neighbor to think my T-shirt came from the confidential funds,” he said.
“So I’d rather not have a confidential fund until the end of my term of office than to have a confidential fund where people will be raising their eyebrows wherever I go. I would appreciate it if Congress would just remove confidential funds from our budget,” he added.
Of the funds in 2023, Castro pointed out that only P16.6 million was obligated. She then asked if the remaining funds had already been used over the past two years.
“I don’t want to brag, but may natitipid po kami sa confidential fund. In the office of the Ombudsman, we have made a lot of changes, especially in this investigation process, where it used to be about four or five investigators going out to the field. We limited that to one or two,” Martires said.
“We also have changed some method or manner of investigation so that we will be able to save money. There are more important things where we can spend that confidential fund than to splurge it on some other matters that are not really that important,” he added.
Martires opted not to reveal the details during the hearing, saying he prefers to explain more about how much his office saved so far in an executive session.