Not so confidential funds

Properly defined, confidential and intelligence funds are the total amount of allocations set aside in the national budget for expenses that involve surveillance and intelligence information gathering activities while intelligence funds are for intelligence expenses related to information gathering activities of uniformed and military personnel and intelligence practitioners that have a direct impact on national security.

As a rule, national government agencies (NGAs) can get both confidential and intelligence funds, while local governments and GOCCs can only get confidential funds. Having said this, while in the first year of the Marcos administration, both budgets of the OP and OVP were passed quickly, it is quite intriguing that to date, the OVP budget is still lengthily in question and specifically on the so called utilization of confidential funds. While the people’s money most certainly should always be accounted for, I am, among many others, in awe by the House hearing on the confidential funds issue of VP Sara Duterte.

While we all know how these hearings started off with a bang with the Vice President herself facing a committee that allegedly was already prepared with a “plan,” the issue intensified further, I would say, when Atty. Zuleika Lopez, chief of staff of the OVP, fought back in Congress, using legal basis with regard to violating separation of powers leading up to her being held in contempt. The question that runs non-stop through the minds of many, regardless of whether they are pro or against the Vice President, is whether this hearing at the House of Representatives is still in aid of legislation, as it sounds more compellingly like an inquisition with backhanded remarks towards resource persons who are just actually invited in aid of legislation.

A regular person – or let’s say, most regular people – who have tuned into this inquiry are just as bewildered as I am, especially when a supposed convicted person who is, at the very same time, a representative at the House, cites for contempt and in totality, the resource person’s evasiveness on the subject. As far as I understood, and frankly speaking, while I do not know Attorney Lopez from Adam, what I saw as a point of reasoning on the subject matter was the fact that the audit process was still ongoing. This was why she made the request to COA, not to defy the House of Representatives but rather to allow the audit process to finish. Surely, any other government agency or local government for that matter would have requested the same had a COA process been incomplete. So what then would be the most valid reason for a quad committee to pursue the issue of the OVP’s confidential funds if resource persons are cited in contempt for being evasive or has “lost her memory?” I suppose your guess is as good as mine, especially when what was being alleged was undue interference by a chief of staff.

Meanwhile, I revert to the people’s money where such an inquisition costs more than the actual price of a resource person’s occasional forgetfulness or evasiveness. Unapologetically I say that this hearing, for me (and for others), looks more like an inquisition rather than it being in aid of legislation, as I have to respectfully agree with the OVP’s chief of staff when she said that currently, an ongoing audit is being conducted with regard to the confidential funds of the OVP by the Commission on Audit which, in turn, has the power to investigate on such funds.

Considering that such findings have yet to be conclusive, releasing documents or information at the moment would infringe on the right of the COA to conduct a full-scale investigation simply because it is still pending.