A former Commission on Audit (COA) official testified before the Senate impeachment court on Monday that the Office of the Vice President (OVP) charged ₱40 million worth of medical and food assistance to confidential funds in late 2022 even though such expenditures were not among those allowed under government rules governing confidential expenses.

Testifying for the prosecution, former COA Intelligence and Confidential Fund Audit Office (ICFAO) auditor Roderick Wamil said a revised accomplishment report submitted by the OVP listed ₱40 million for medical and food assistance and ₱10 million for incentives or travel-related expenses tied to confidential operations.

“Based on this document, some of the line items presented as confidential expenses are not among the allowable expenses under Item 4.8 of the Joint Circular,” Wamil told the court.

Wamil said the issues surfaced after ICFAO attempted to serve an Audit Observation Memorandum (AOM) concerning the OVP’s fourth-quarter 2022 confidential fund expenditures. The memorandum was not received because no authorized official was available to accept it.

According to the witness, the OVP submitted a revised accomplishment report later that same day. The updated report identified the specific activities for which confidential funds had been used, information that had been absent from the original submission.

“The significance of this document is that it specified the confidential activities for which the cash advance was used,” Wamil said in Filipino, noting that the initial accomplishment report did not identify the particular activities funded.

However, he said the additional details did not resolve the audit concerns.

Wamil identified two entries in the report: ₱40 million for the “provision of medical and food aid” and ₱10 million for the “payment of incentives or travelling relative to confidential operations.”

Under Joint Circular No. 2015-01, confidential funds may be used for activities such as purchasing information relevant to security operations, maintaining safe houses, renting vehicles for covert activities, acquiring operational equipment and supplies, and paying rewards to informants under specific conditions.

Medical and food assistance, as well as travel-related incentives, are not included among the enumerated uses.

“Kapag sinabi pong exclusive, other than those enumerated po ay hindi na po siya allowed as confidential expenses,” Wamil said.

He said both items were therefore outside the allowable uses of confidential funds under the joint circular, which governs the release, use, reporting and audit of confidential and intelligence funds.

Rewards questioned

Wamil also testified that the OVP failed to submit documents required to justify reported payments of rewards to informants.

Under Item 4.8.5 of the joint circular, rewards may be charged to confidential funds only if they are approved by the agency head and supported by documents showing that the information provided resulted in successful information-gathering or surveillance activities.

The former auditor said the revised accomplishment report did not include documents demonstrating the success of intelligence or surveillance activities supposedly arising from information supplied by informers.

“Aside from this accomplishment report, they did not submit any document evidencing the success of the information-gathering or surveillance activities on account of the information given by the informer,” Wamil testified.

The questioned expenditures form part of the OVP's controversial use of ₱125 million in confidential funds released in December 2022. The spending has been under scrutiny since state auditors flagged deficiencies in supporting documents and later affirmed the disallowance of ₱73.28 million in confidential expenses from the same period.

Audit records showed that some of the questioned transactions involved nearly ₱34.8 million in rewards distributed as various goods, ₱24.9 million worth of medicines, ₱11.8 million in supplies, ₱500,000 for tables and chairs, and ₱3 million for desktop computers and printers.

Earlier this year, COA issued notices of disallowance covering portions of the OVP’s confidential fund expenditures, citing noncompliance with Joint Circular No. 2015-01 and deficiencies in supporting documentation.