Kabataan party-list questions DND’s use of ‘black budget’

Defense officials on Tuesday maintained that the department's use of intelligence funds was above board amid allegations that it was using the discretionary budget for questionable activities such as the hiring of “cyber armies” to influence public opinion.

DND Assistant Secretary Ernesto Boac said the use of intelligence funds was “strictly based” on the joint circular issued by the agency, Commission on Audit, Department of Budget and Management, and Department of Interior and Local Government.

“The circular prescribes all the rules, regulations, and the processes in the utilization and liquidation of the intelligence fund,” Boac told lawmakers at the DND’s budget briefing before the House Committee on Appropriations.

Boac said the joint circular also specified how the DND and its attached agencies should report the use of both the intelligence and confidential funds given to them by Congress.

For 2016, Boac said the DBM has proposed a P269.4-million intelligence fund for various agencies, with the Armed Forces of the Philippines headquarters getting P128.6 million, Philippine Army P44 million; Philippine Navy P34.7 million; Philippine Air Force P17 million, and Presidential Security Group, P12 million.

The DND also has a proposed P23-million confidential fund and a P10-million intelligence fund.

Kabataan party-list Rep. Terry Ridon had aired his apprehension on how the military’s intelligence funds would be used as his group’s own research showed that the Aquino administration had spent P8.8 billion of its so-called “black budget” since 2010.

The lawmaker defined the “black budget” as discretionary funds whose use even Congress is unaware of.

“The secretive nature of these funds explicitly bars the public from scrutinizing how these funds are used. Even the Commission on Audit (COA) only has a minute ministerial role in scrutinizing the use of such funds,” Ridon said.

The lawmaker said it is rare even for COA to mention the use of confidential and intelligence funds, except in 2014, when its annual audit report for the Office of the President noted a P50-million unliquidated cash advance for confidential and intelligence expenses.

Ridon said a scrutiny of the national budget in the last five years showed that the Office of the President has gotten the lion’s share of the P8.8-billion discretionary budget, with P2.2 billion left for the Chief Executive’s discretion.

“The black budget’s secret nature makes it is very easy for the Executive Department to use it to hire cyber armies and bankroll paid trolls,” he said, referring to netizens that put the government's critics in bad light through the social media.

Ridon challenged the Aquino administration to disclose details on the use of confidential and intelligence funds even through an executive session. —NB, GMA News