Greater accountability for confidential, intel funds eyed
GOVERNMENT officials asking for confidential and intelligence funds in their spending plan under the 2024 national budget should be held with greater accountability to ensure that public funds are spent judiciously and efficiently, according to Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero.
In Tuesday’s hearing of the Senate Committee on Finance that tackled the next year’s proposed budget, Escudero reminded Cabinet members and heads of government agencies to bare their “physical and financial plan” on how they intend to spend their requests for confidential funds “without violating the confidential nature of the funds.”
The senator made the statement as the finance panel discussed the budget allocation of DepEd, which included the P150-million confidential fund request of the department.
“Since it is the discretion of Congress, as I heard the Madam Secretary and Vice President say, to grant this or not, we will grant it for as long as we see the physical and financial plan broken down according to the JMC without violating the confidentiality that you need in order to perform your job,” Escudero explained.
The senator was referring to the Joint Memorandum Circular (JMC) 2015- 01 issued by the Department of Budget and Management, the Commission on Audit, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Department of National Defense, and the Governance Commission for the GOCCs (GCG) on January 8, 2015 which prescribed “guidelines on the entitlement, release, use, reporting and audit of confidential and/or intelligence funds.”
Per JMC, confidential fund refers to the lump-sum amount provided as such in the General Appropriations Act for National Government Agencies, in appropriation ordinances for local government units, and in the corporate operating budgets or COBs for government owned and controlled corporations, for their confidential expenses.
Intelligence expenses, on the other hand, refer to those related to intelligence information gathering activities of uniformed and military personnel and intelligence practitioners that have direct impact on national security.
“In short, confidential funds may be lodged in civilian agencies, intelligence funds cannot be lodged in civilian agencies. Intelligence funds only belong to military or uniformed agencies,” Escudero clarified.
“May listahan naman sa JMC like surveillance, transportation, etc. It’s a matter of putting amounts to each that you can legally spend on without specifying, we are not violating any of the confidentiality rules,” he stressed.
Under Section 4 (General Guidelines) of JMC 2015- 01, all allocations of CF and/or IF are required to be supported with a Physical and Financial Plan, indicating the proposed amount allocated for each program, activity, and project, where disbursements pertaining to CE and IE shall be based.
