Revival of Senate oversight on intel funds sought

MANILA, Philippines — The Senate is set to revive its oversight committee for confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs) amid mounting calls from within and outside the chamber to transfer controversial allocations to important programs.

Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri filed yesterday a resolution called a Select Oversight Committee to monitor government agencies’ utilization of their allocated CIFs, which for next year is proposed by Malacañang at P9.3 billion.

“It has long been the practice of the Senate to constitute a Select Oversight Committee for confidential and intelligence funds. Since the 10th Congress, the Senate has always formed the Select Oversight Committee, and we are going to continue that for the 19th Congress,” Zubiri said in a statement.

Under the P5.268-trillion General Appropriations Bill (GAB) for 2023, P4.3 billion is earmarked as confidential funds while P4.9 billion was allocated as intelligence funds.

“It is our job, as an independent and democratic Senate, to keep watch over the use of the national budget. That is especially true for these sensitive funds, which are not subject to the usual auditing rules and procedures of the Commission on Audit. Being that we cannot identify the particulars of their usage ahead of time, the committee is our way of subjecting these funds to checks and balances,” he said.

Zubiri said the CIFs “are important in allowing our agencies to conduct necessary programs, operations and activities for the safety and security of our people.”

The Senate, however, needs to be vigilant about how these funds are used, which will be the function of the oversight panel, he added.

The committee will be composed of three members of the majority, one minority and will be headed by the Senate president.

Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva said he expects the resolution to be adopted swiftly as the committee is set to ensure transparency and judicious utilization of taxpayers’ money.

“The Senate should definitely exercise the ‘power of the purse’ to make sure that the intelligence funds in the national budget will indeed be spent intelligently and responsibly,” Villanueva said.

He said previous Congresses have formed such oversight panels and their basis is in Section 14, Rule X of the chamber, which provides that whenever necessary, special committees shall be organized, the membership and jurisdiction of which shall be determined by the Senate president.

Former Senate president Vicente Sotto III and former senator Panfilo Lacson earlier said the chamber should be active in exercising its oversight functions and that Zubiri should encourage his colleagues to “practice due diligence in guarding the people’s money.”

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III and Sen. Risa Hontiveros earlier called for the constitution of the oversight panel as moves to realign the CIFs appeared to be an uphill battle.

Hontiveros and Pimentel said they haven’t much opposition to such funds allocated to intelligence and law enforcement agencies, except probably for the amounts.

The minority bloc is having issues on the allocation of CIFs to civilian agencies that do not have the mandate to undertake intelligence and security operations like the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd), which were respectively allocated P500 million and P150 million in CIFs for next year.

The proposed budgets of the OVP and DepEd, which is headed by Vice President Sara Duterte, hurdled the Senate plenary deliberations on Monday with their CIFs intact.

Pimentel and Hontiveros, however, said they would make a last-ditch attempt to realign the funds during the period of amendments for the GAB.