EDITORIAL — Regulate secret funds

In handling massive amounts of public funds, the less personal discretion is entrusted to public officials, the better for good governance. This principle partly underpinned the decision of the Supreme Court to abolish the congressional pork barrel. Now it turns out that lawmakers aren’t the only ones enjoying control over billions in discretionary funds.

Amid scrutiny of huge amounts of confidential funds allocated to Sara Duterte as Vice President and during her six years as Davao City mayor, the Department of the Interior and Local Government has explained that local government units are allowed by law to have secret funds for dealing with peace and order problems in their communities. DILG Secretary Benhur Abalos, himself a former mayor, said the allocation of confidential funds to LGUs “is just fine… as long as it is not abused.”

And there lies the rub, in this land of endemic corruption, where many politicians along with their extended families and business cronies treat public coffers as their personal piggybanks. This is done easily when the requirements for transparency and public accountability in the utilization of people’s money are relaxed. And they are most relaxed in the case of confidential and intelligence funds or CIF. Little wonder that dynasty-building is shamelessly out of control, and murder is rampant in local politics.

CIF allocation requests are rising exponentially each year in the executive branch. Taxpayers won’t begrudge security and certain civilian agencies secret funds. People won’t mind realigning billions in confidential funds to agencies that are clearly in dire need of greater funding, such as the Philippine Coast Guard.

The PCG received a total of P118.7 million in confidential funds in the past 17 years. Compare this with the P125 million in confidential funds that the Office of the Vice President received in the final months of 2022, and spent in December. Whether it was spent within 19 days, as Vice President Duterte maintains, or just 11 days, as Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo has said, the allocation still speaks volumes about the spending priorities under the current administration.

The P125 million pales in comparison to the even larger secret funds allocated to Davao City when Sara Duterte was the mayor. Annual audit reports on the city conducted by the Commission on Audit showed that the city government incurred a whopping P2.697 billion in confidential expenses from 2016 to 2022, surging from P144 million in 2016 to P460 million annually from 2019 to 2022. Davao’s confidential spending was greater than those of larger or wealthier cities including Cebu, Quezon City, Manila and Makati.

There are state security agencies specifically tasked to maintain peace and order and protect the citizenry. Why should more tax money be allocated outside these agencies for the same purpose, and with politicians given wide berth to spend huge amounts as they please? It’s time to put discretionary funds under tighter rein.