A former Commission on Audit (CoA) official testified before the Senate impeachment court on Monday that the Office of the Vice President (OVP) charged P40 million worth of medical and food assistance to its confidential funds in late 2022 even though such expenditures were not allowed under the 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 P40 million for medical and food assistance and P10 million for incentives and travel-related expenses tied to confidential operations.

“Based on this document, some of the line items presented as confidential expenses were not among the allowable expenses under item 4.8 of the joint circular,” Wamil told the court.

Wamil said the issues surfaced after the ICFAO attempted to serve an Audit Observation Memorandum 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 the 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.

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

Wamil identified two entries in the report: P40 million for the “provision of medical and food aid” and P10 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, were not among the enumerated uses.

“When you say exclusive, other than those enumerated, these are not allowed as confidential expenses,” Wamil said.

He said both items were therefore outside the allowable uses for 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 the required documents to justify the payment 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