2 days ago
De Lima files bill to disclose confi, intel fund outlays flagged by COA
A bill lifting the secrecy on the disbursement details of confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) and limiting the CIF allocation to 10% of the agency's budget, among others, has been proposed in the House of Representatives.
Former Justice secretary and current ML party-list Representative Leila de Lima on Monday made the proposal under her House Bill 1845, or the CIF Utilization and Accountability Act.
IN the bill, all CIF information and documents will remain confidential, but will automatically lose confidentiality and will thereafter be disclosed to the public once the Commission on Audit (COA) issues a Notice of Disallowance (ND) on a CIF disbursement.
State auditors issue NDs if when the expenditure is found to be 'either irregular, unnecessary, excessive, extravagant, or unconscionable.'
The ND, however, can be appealed by the concerned agency.
'The CIF, including all the information and documents related thereto, will then be subject to inquiries and investigations, with documents and related information to be made public, without need of compulsory processes,' the bill read.
In addition, de Lima's proposal states that CIF allocations for any single agency, considering the population serviced, should not exceed 10% of the total annual budget of the agency, unless otherwise explicitly authorized by law.
Further, the bill limits the allocation of CIF to agencies as indicated under the General Appropriations Act and to all other agencies, departments, and units 'with mandates related to national security, peace and order, and intelligence gathering.'
'While the initial guidelines in 2015 may have been appropriate and sufficient at that time, recent developments have exposed the vulnerability of the existing design, implementation, and auditing process of confidential and intelligence funds. Particularly significant among these recent developments is the reported misuse and malversation of confidential funds amounting to P612.5 million appropriated to the Office of the Vice President (OVP) Sara Duterte and the Department of Education (DepEd) of which Duterte served as Secretary,' de Lima said in her explanatory note on the measure, referring to the subject of the impeachment complaint against Vice President Duterte.
She then cited the findings of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability panel on its inquiry on such funds which include:
confidential funds were appropriated to civilian government agencies whose mandates do not include surveillance, nor involve national security and peace and order
confidential expenses were unrelated to national security and peace and order, or confidential funds appropriated for non-confidential activities and expenses
liquidation reports submitted had either unreadable, incomplete, unstated, repeating,or made-up or fictitious names of payees; or liquidation reports had forgeries or no signatures at all
Special Disbursement Offices (SDOs) hired were clueless on how the confidential funds were spent after turning the funds over to another unauthorized individual upon instruction from
Vice President Duterte and
absence of reports on accomplishments of the use of confidential funds.
'The obvious misuse and malversation of millions in taxpayer money as a result of exploiting the weak and insufficient guidelines on confidential and intelligence funds, poses a serious threat to the preservation of public trust in the government and the legitimacy of its institutions,' de Lima said.
'As such, legislative intervention is deemed necessary to ensure that CIF are strictly appropriated to justifiable activities and agencies with mandates to maintain national security and peace and order, and are properly audited with as much transparency as permitted without compromising confidential and intelligence operations,' she added. — BM, GMA Integrated News
