‘Watch out for restoration of Vice President Sara’s secret funds’

MANILA, Philippines — The public must be vigilant in monitoring the budget process to prevent the restoration of Vice President Sara Duterte’s confidential funds in the 2024 budget, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III urged yesterday.

At a virtual press briefing, Pimentel said while Duterte has dropped her request for P500 million in confidential funds for the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and P150 million for the Department of Education which she also heads, the funds can be brought back during the bicameral conference.

“That is the inconvenient truth about the bicameral conference – anything goes there. Theoretically speaking, the bicam has the power to introduce and restore anything,” Pimentel said in Filipino. “Which is why to those interested in the issue, constant vigilance is important until the very end.”

The senator recalled the time Duterte’s P150-million confidential fund request in the 2023 budget of the DepEd was reduced by the Senate to just P30 million but was reinstated to its original amount of P150 million during the bicameral conference.

But the bicameral conference last year tackled differing versions of the budget bill. This year, the Senate adopted the House version of the bill to remove the confidential funds from civilian agencies and realign it to national security agencies, especially those tasked to safeguard the West Philippine Sea.

Still, Pimentel hoped Duterte would be true to her word of letting go of her secret funds request and to move on from the controversy.

“Her statement was clear. The assumption is that the Vice President is an elected public official, sensitive to the sentiments of the people and also a person of her word,” Pimentel said.

He called it a waste of legislative exercise if lawmakers supportive of Duterte would move for the restoration of the confidential fund when she publicly declared she does not want it anymore.

Meanwhile, the senator urged President Marcos to let go of his P2.31-billion intelligence funds because the Office of the President (OP) is a civilian agency, not a uniformed or military one.

While he has no problem with the OP’s request for P2.25 billion in confidential funds, Pimentel urged it to follow in the footsteps of other civilian agencies and at the least reduce the amount.

The OP’s request for confidential and intelligence funds amounts to P4.56 billion, or almost half of its total P10.7-billion budget next year.

Saving face

Duterte abandoned her request to have confidential funds in the national budget for 2024 only to “save face,” the Makabayan bloc said yesterday.

“It is just an attempt to save face. It’s just saving face because they could no longer ease the anger of the people for the confidential fund which is very vulnerable to corruption,” Gabriela Women’s party-list Rep. Arlene Brosas underscored in Filipino.

“Maybe the Vice President was just forced to make that decision because the issue of confidential fund stinks and it has become unpopular to the people,” ACT Teachers party-list Rep. France Castro added.

“They are just orchestrating things because if this (controversy) will continue, it will reach up to the Office of the President which has the biggest allocation for confidential fund,” Kabataan party-list Rep. Raoul Manuel maintained. — Sheila Crisostomo