Hontiveros seeks ban on use of contingency funds to hike confi funds under 2024 budget bill

Senate Deputy Minority Leader Risa Hontiveros on Wednesday proposed a ban on the use of contingency funds to increase the confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) of civilian government agencies under the General Appropriations Bill (GAB), which contains the proposed 2024 national budget.

Hontiveros presented the idea during the first day of plenary debates on the proposed P5.768-trillion national budget for next year.

"With respect to augmentation of the CIF from the contingent fund as was done last year for the Office of the Vice President (OVP), we wish to propose an amendment to the current special provision of the contingent fund," Hontiveros manifested during her interpellation on the proposed 2024 budget.

"Again, as a matter of fiscal prudence, we'd like to include the augmentation of the CIF as a prohibition under the contingent fund, along with prohibition to tap the said fund for the purchase of for let’s say motor vehicles," she added.

Hontiveros was referring to Vice President Sara Duterte's earlier admission before the Senate finance committee that her office requested confidential funds in August 2022.

Duterte confirmed that Malacañang charged to its contingent fund and transferred to OVP the amount P221.4 million.

Hontiveros said in the current version of the GAB, the special provision only prohibits the use of the P13 billion contingent fund for the purchase of motor vehicles.

'There is merit, but...'

Senator Sonny Angara, who defends the 2024 national budget as chairman of the Senate finance committee, said "there is a merit" in Hontiveros' proposal, but warned that the proposed amendment might also hinder the augmentation of CIFs for security agencies.

"Yes, certainly. I think there is a merit in that, but I was being told that if it's overbored, it may hamper the sum of the security agencies. Perhaps, there may be an exception to the exception. An exception to your proposal just in case that there are emergencies," he said,

"Because I think there have been occasions in the past where they found the need to supplement the security agencies, not just civilian agencies," Angara added.

Responding to Angara, Hontiveros said her proposal will only be limited to government agencies that have no security mandates.

"This representation will have no quarrel with that... But definitely, 'yung iniisip kong i-propose na amendment will not pertain to security agencies that have clear national defense and public safety mandates and expertise, kundi civilian agencies na wala namang direktang mga ganon (but only to civilian agencies which have no security mandate)," Hontiveros said.

The CIF under the 2024 budget have been controversial in the House of Representatives and in the Senate.

CIF

The House of Representatives has removed P1.23 billion worth of confidential funds from five agencies under the 2024 proposed budget, including the P500 million allocated to the OVP and the P125 million to the Department of Education (DepEd), which are both headed by Duterte.

In the Senate, it was disclosed that senators have "agreed unanimously to remove all CIF, not only OVP and DepEd, but all civilian agencies that have CIF."

According to GMA Integrated News Research, more government civilian agencies are now asking for confidential funds under their proposed budget for 2024

Twenty-eight agencies have formally sought confidential funds in their 2024 budget, up from the 21 offices in 2016.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) earlier said the total amount of CIF across all agencies in the proposed 2024 budget is P10.14 billion, including P4.5 billion for the Office of the President (P2.25 billion confidential and P2.31 billion intelligence fund) and P500 million for the OVP.

A Joint Circular No. 2015-01 of the Commission on Audit (COA) identified confidential funds as allocations that civilian government agencies use for surveillance activities supporting their mandate.

This is different from the intelligence fund (IF), which is being used by the uniformed, military personnel, and intelligence practitioners in sourcing information related to national security. —KBK, GMA Integrated News