EDITORIAL — Public but confidential

The P125 million was received on Dec. 13 last year. On Dec. 31, the entire amount had been disbursed. Members of the minority Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives have been pressing the Office of the Vice President to explain how it used the P125 million in confidential funds within just 19 days, especially since the OVP didn’t even have an item for such funds in the approved budget for 2022.

Instead the funds were transferred to the OVP from the Office of the President following the change of administration last year. Malacañang and Vice President Sara Duterte have defended the fund transfer from criticisms that it was an illegal act. Duterte has also challenged her critics to file appropriate charges.

Instead, the critics say they may bring the issue to the Supreme Court, which had previously struck down as unconstitutional the earmarking of projects for funding after the annual General Appropriations Act has been signed into law. The SC ruling on the GAA was supposed to put an end to the congressional pork barrel system. Since the ruling, however, several persons including Panfilo Lacson when he was a senator kept pointing out that lawmakers found ways to circumvent the SC ruling and retain modified versions of the pork barrel. On top of this, there is now a growing trend among agencies to have ever-increasing appropriations for confidential and intelligence funds.

While CFIs are not completely exempted from auditing rules, their utilization enjoys a much greater shield from public scrutiny. The growing predilection for CFI appropriations, even in agencies with no involvement in security matters, has raised concern over the judicious use of public funds, transparency and the quality of governance.

Duterte, in explaining to the Senate her request for P500 million in CFI for the OVP in 2024, said, “We can only propose but we are not insisting. We can live without confidential funds, but of course our work will be much easier if we have the flexibility of confidential funds in monitoring the safe, secure and successful implementation of the programs and projects and activities of the OVP.”

Taxpayers also want to be able to monitor the “safe, secure” utilization of people’s money. This cannot happen when the rapidly growing trend in government is confidentiality.