EDITORIAL - Intelligence and confidence

After the Department of Education was granted P150 million in confidential funds, the Office of the Solicitor General now wants their own slice of this pie.

Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra said the proposed allocation of ?19.2 million in confidential funds will help them fulfill their mandate as counsel for the government.

“Confidential funds will provide additional resources to the OSG to enable it to perform its duties as counsel for the republic more effectively,” he said.

This is not a government agency or office that performs functions that warrant a confidential fund.

According to the official website of the OSG, "The OSG represents the Government of the Philippines, its agencies and instrumentalities and its officials and agents in any litigation, proceeding, investigation or matter requiring the services of lawyers. When authorized by the President or head of the office concerned, it shall also represent government owned or controlled corporations. The Office of the Solicitor General shall discharge duties requiring the services of lawyers."

Although the OSG can do certain kinds of investigations, it duties do not involve national security matters whatsoever, and according to the joint circular by the Commission on Audit (COA), the Department of Budget and Management, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, and the Governance Commission for Government-Owned and Controlled Corporations, confidential and intelligence funds can only be used for programs activities and projects relevant to national security and peace and order.

If granted, the OSG will become the second non-security agency or office to receive a confidential fund after DepEd, which also didn’t deserve one in the first place.

The disadvantage of confidential funds is that liquidating or auditing them can be quite difficult, if not impossible. COA would have no choice but to take the agency’s word for it that the confidential funds were used to the advantage of the taxpayers.

So yes, they can be used for purposes other than what is the official mandate of the office that has them --even for personal enrichment-- and no one would be the wiser.

If confidential funds are granted to offices that are not mandated to carry out security, surveillance, or espionage operations, what is to stop even more and more agencies that also have nothing to do with security, surveillance, or espionage operations from requesting their own confidential funds and possibly misusing them?

We know how intelligent people can become when it comes to taking advantage of public money. The word “confident” isn’t what many taxpayers would use to describe how they feel about some government offices or the government in general.