AN ally of former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte is opposed to the allocation of confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs) to the office of Vice President Sara Duterte.

Lawyer Melvin Matibag, whom Duterte appointed as Cabinet secretary in the last few months of his term, expressed his opposition in an opinion piece published in a newspaper.

“I am against the Office of the Vice President being allocated the CIFs because the Vice President has no duty under the Constitution that requires them to secure our common defense. I have nothing against Vice President Sara Duterte. I am just against civilian agencies being accorded with secret funds,” he said.

“Necessarily, I am against the DepEd, the DTI, DoTr, and other civilian departments being allocated with CIFs. It should strictly be allocated only to civilian agencies with defense duties, national security, law enforcement, and operations responsibilities,” he said.

Vice President Duterte, who is also Education secretary, had requested P500 million in CIFs for her office as the country’s No. 2 elected official and P150 million as DepEd chief.

Her father has defended her request.

But the ommittee on appropriations of the House of Representatives has decided to recommend the realignment of CIFs allocated to civilian agencies to offices dealing with national security and peace and order issues.

According to a Commission on Audit report, VP Duterte spent the P125 million in confidential funds allocated to her office in just 11 days, or P11.36 million a day.

” How could she use up more than P11 million a day? some lawmakers wondered,” Matibag said.

“The sound policy…is to strictly allocate CIFs to agencies mandated to protect us in the five domains of warfare — land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace.” “They should be allocated with definitive standards and parameters, such as the degree of threats, the value of tools needed, etc. Of course, the President, as the commander-in-chief, is necessarily afforded the fund,” he said.

The former Duterte administration officials also opposed the appropriation and use by local government units (LGUs) of CIFs.

“I saw a chart of the LGUs that allocated for themselves the use of confidential funds, and it was really bothersome. There should be no secrecy in spending the LGUs’ budget. Every item should be open for audit and properly liquidated as the regular funds,” he said.

“I get that there is the element of maintaining peace and order in local communities by local executives. But indeed, maintaining peace and order in the town or province is part and parcel of the duty and responsibility of the local government executive. They do not need a secret fund to do that job,” he said.

He added that the “ultimate standard” Congress should observe in appropriating CIFs “should be that of good governance and prudent fiscal policy.”

The Makabayan bloc of lawmakers in the House of Representatives has sought an inquiry into the use of almost P3 billion in CIFs by the Davao City government between 2016 and 2023.