Daily TribuneOVP’s spokesperson, lawyer Reynold Munsayac, meanwhile, told the Daily Tribune that the funds would be used ‘efficiently and properly’ to support the programs of the OVP, and the utilization will be in compliance with all the provisions of law and relevant issuances
Independent opposition lawmaker Edcel Lagman has once again called on Congress to exercise "judiciousness and frugality" in allocating confidential and intelligence funds, totaling P9.29 billion in the proposed P5.268-trillion 2023 national budget.
Lagman, the newly installed president of the once-ruling Liberal Party, stressed that the House-approved budget for 2023 must be purged of unnecessary and excessive confidential and intelligence funds embedded in various offices, agencies and departments.
"This total amount is much bigger than the appropriations of many government offices and departments, including the constitutional commissions and offices," he said Monday.
The veteran solon of Albay even argued that "no stretch of the imagination or flexibility of logic could justify the P500 million in the Office of the Vice President and another P150 million in the Department of Education," both of which are under Vice President Sara Z. Duterte.
"The OVP is not a surveillance agency and has no jurisdiction over matters of national security," he said.
"The novels of Agatha Christie and the exploits of Sherlock Holmes are not staple readings for basic education and the mandate of DepEd does not include detective activities," he furthered.
OVP's spokesperson, lawyer Reynold Munsayac, meanwhile, told the Daily Tribune that the funds would be used "efficiently and properly" to support the programs of the OVP, and the utilization will be in compliance with all the provisions of law and relevant issuances.
"In fact, it was clearly established during the budget hearings that the mandate and functions of a Vice President allow the utilization of confidential funds and other former Vice Presidents were also allocated the same," Munsayac said.
According to Lagman, since the utilization of confidential and intelligence funds is shrouded in mystery and the supposed audit by the Commission on Audit could not be disclosed to Congress and the public, these funds breed corruption, and the more enormous the funds are, the greater the potential for graft.
Lagman made the first call to the lower chamber during his interpellation of the proposed P9.03-billion budget for the Office of the President on Wednesday, the day the House approved on the third and final reading House Bill 4488 or the 2023 General Appropriations Bill.
