WHILE validating the usefulness of confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) for security purposes, the Senate moved on Monday to create an oversight committee of five members in order to keep close watch over the use of over P9 billion in CIF in the 2023 national budget.
Senators adopted Senate Resolution 302, creating the committee, after Senate President Miguel Zubiri took the floor to defend the continued allocation of CIFs even for agencies outside the security clusters.
The Senate leader said Resolution will allow Congress as the check and balance to the Executive to “keep a close eye” on government’s disbursements using intelligence funds.
He assured the public Resolution 302 will enable senators to perform their duty to “ensure public funds are spend judiciously.”
The CIFs’ sharp increase has sparked concern that huge chunks of the budget will remain outside audit examination, and hence, possibly misused.
Among those who led the charge against the CIF for agencies such as the OVP and DepEd was Minority Leader Koko Pimentel. At Monday’s creation of the panel, Pimentel acknowledged that the committee is a good step, but said it would have been much better to discourage allocation of such huge CIFs for agencies that are not traditionally recipients of such, or whose mandate does not require them to conduct “intelligence work.” He had earlier noted that the CIFs of some departments even dwarf those of agencies tasked with intelligence work for the overall security programs, such as the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency.
However, taking the floor on Monday after Zubiri, Sen. Robin Padilla said CIFs were “useful for tracking” in the government’s “successful fight against terrorists.”
Padilla cited Davao, for instance, adding: “now it is free of terrorists.”
Named members of the oversight panel are Majority Leader Joel Villanueva, Senate Finance committee chairman Juan Edgardo Angara, Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa and Minority Leader Koko Pimentel, with Senate President Zubiri as the chairman.