Senators grill VP Duterte on proposed P500-M confidential funds

Senators on Monday quizzed Vice President Sara Duterte over her office request for confidential funds amounting to P500 million for the upcoming fiscal year.

During the deliberation of the Senate Committee on Finance for the proposed P2.385 billion budget of the Office of the Vice President, Duterte was asked about her request for confidential funds.

Of nine senators who were lined up to ask questions about the OVP budget, only Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III and Senate Minority Deputy Leader Risa Hontiveros inquired about the allocation of confidential funds to Duterte's office.

Hontiveros particularly questioned Duterte on which mandates of the vice president needed the allocation of confidential funds.

Duterte said all the OVP's projects would require confidential funds.

"All of the projects of the Office of the Vice President use the confidential funds that are intended for the safe, secure and successful implementation of programs, projects and activities and engagements of the OVP and all of the satellite offices, including the central office of the Office of the Vice President," she said.

The Vice President specifically said all the programs implemented by her office benefit from the confidential funds, such as entrepreneurship programs; peacebuilding in communities; tree-planting programs; feeding programs; disaster and relief operations; and free transportation programs.

"In addition to that, I discharge the functions and duties of the secretary of the Department of Education. In addition to that, I was tasked by the president to co-chair the National Task Force on Ending Local Communists. In addition to that, I also took on the role of president of the Southeast Asian Ministers, Education Ministers Organization. All of these activities use confidential funds," she said.

"In addition, there are times when the President is on official trips, travel abroad. I chair the executive committee which is the caretaker of the Office of the President. This is an additional workload from all of the workload I have mentioned," she added.

Confidential funds are supposed to be utilized for "surveillance activities in civilian government agencies that are intended to support the mandate or operations of the said agency."

Duterte also said the liquidation of the allocated confidential funds was enumerated in the OVP's report submitted to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Senate President and the Commission on Audit.

She also confirmed that the OVP was undertaking surveillance activities and gathering intelligence – a mandate given by the Constitution to civilian government agencies such as the Philippine National Police, Armed Forces of the Philippines and National Intelligence Coordination Agency.

"That is correct. As an example, we did a surveillance of complaints from constituents in Bulacan with regard to the selling of OVP assistance and the selling of TUPAD projects in Bulacan," she said.

This prompted Hontiveros to ask Duterte how she could ensure that there would be no duplication of work by her office and other civilian government agencies.

"There is no redundancy and duplication of effort because we have different mandates from the other government agencies," the Vice President responded.

Duterte also argued that the OVP is not insisting on any amount for its confidential funds, adding that it is up to the members of Congress if they would grant her office's request.

"The OVP can only propose the use of confidential funds based on Joint Circular 2015-01 but we leave it to the decision and discretion of Congress [which] has the power of the purse to decide whether to grant confidential funds to our office," she 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 implementations of the programs and projects and activities of the OVP," she added.

Meanwhile, Pimentel asked Duterte for her basis in seeking P500 million in confidential funds.

Duterte said the basis for her office's request is Joint Circular No. 2015-01.

Unsatisfied, Pimentel said that Joint Circular No. 2015-01 issued by COA and Departments of Budget and Management, of National Defense and of the Interior and Local Government and the Governance Commission for GOCCs in 2015 only "governs the use of confidential funds."

Duterte countered that "the fact there is Joint Circular No. 2015-01… presumes that national government agencies are allowed or can request confidential funds because otherwise there will not be a joint circular for the use of national government agencies…"

Joint Circular No. 2015-01 contains guidelines on the entitlement, release, use, reporting and audit of CIFs.

After about an hour and a half, the Senate panel terminated the deliberation for the OVP's proposed budget, which was longer compared to the 20-minute approval made by the House Committee on Appropriations for the OVP's budget proposal for next year.

Citing parliamentary courtesy, Senator Ramon "Bong" Revilla Jr. made a motion to terminate the budget discussion for the OVP's proposed budget.

Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa seconded Revilla's motion.