THE past few weeks’ congressional budget hearings, widely covered and reported by media, show telltales of how public offices can be oblivious to the plight of the public they are sworn to serve. While ordinary Filipinos can barely manage to survive the unbridled increases in fuel costs, soaring prices of tomatoes (after sugar and onions), and improvident rice price caps leading to losses among retailers, billions of pesos in confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) were allocated to select public offices. And only some members of Congress’ appropriations committees that were mandated to ensure the judicious and provident allocation of this scarce financial resource did their jobs.

Parliamentary courtesy

Not all men are created equal, as the offices of the executive department are.

From the proposed national budget for fiscal year 2024 of P5.768 trillion, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was asking for P10.6 billion for the Office of the President (OP), which includes P4.56 billion as CIF. The proposed budget for the office did not have to go through the crucible of scrutiny as a gesture of parliamentary courtesy to the head of a co-equal branch of government.

Vice President Sara Duterte, on the other hand, was seeking P2.3 billion for the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP), including P500 million as confidential fund (CF). As secretary of the Department of Education (DepEd) in a concurrent capacity, she was asking for a P924.7 billion budget for DepEd and P150 million out of it as CF. She breezed through the appropriations committee of the House of Representatives courtesy of Rep. Sandro Marcos, who moved “to terminate the budget (sic) of the Office of the Vice President,” citing “the long-standing tradition of giving the Office of the Vice President parliamentary courtesy.”

But the Philippine “presidentin-waiting,” a “benchwarmer” in her own words, was not accorded the same “courtesy” by the minority bloc in the Senate that grilled her for asking for P500 million as CF for the OVP.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros calls the funding “fundamentally wrong” if “the OVP alone has a confidential fund of half a billion pesos while the NICA (National Intelligence and Coordinating Agency) itself, which is the government’s primary intelligence arm, has confidential and intelligence funds of only P341.2 million. If granted, Hontiveros claims, the OVP’s CF even far exceeds the P438.2 million in combined CIF allocated for NICA and the Department of National Defense!

Duterte was also asked by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel 3rd to explain the situation where the OVP liquidated the P125 million out of the P221 million transferred by the OP to the OVP as confidential fund while “[t]here was no item for confidential fund for 2022.”

Under siege

Still on the matter of CF, per the Senate press release, Duterte admitted that the OVP spent its 2023 CIF for the “safe, secure and successful” implementation of some OVP projects, like the construction of a vice presidents’ museum and an OVP permanent office, as well as free bus rides, tree plantings and feeding programs.

Hontiveros pounded on this revelation, citing that Joint Circular 2015-01 of the Commission on Audit and the Department of Budget and Management does not sanction said “initiatives,” as they are not among the exclusive list of programs for which confidential funds may be spent. She points out that free bus rides and tree plantings are not projects involving national security to justify enormous CF when they can be supported by regular agency funds.

It is of public interest that the merit of allocating either CF and/or IF be established to the satisfaction of that branch of government mandated to safeguard and judiciously discharge the “power of the purse” that Congress wields.

Paragraph 3.9 of the circular provides that confidential expenses (where CFs are spent) “refer to those expenses pertaining/related to surveillance activities in civilian government agencies that are intended to support the mandate or operations of the agency.” On the other hand, under paragraph 3.15 of the circular, intelligence expenses (where IFs are disbursed) “relate to intelligence information gathering activities of uniformed and military personnel and intelligence practitioners (defined in paragraph 3.16 of the circular) that have a direct impact on national security.”

With these issues still unsettled, the deliberation of the OVP’s proposed budget for 2024 was abbreviated by Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr., citing tradition of respect to the second highest official of the land. That notwithstanding, Duterte lashed back at Hontiveros and Rep. France Castro. In an apparent tirade for their questioning the OVP’s projected use of CF, she was quoted as saying, “I have no respect for them” when asked why she singled out the named legislators.

Public office a public trust

Article XI of the 1987 Constitution admonishes government employees through Section 1 thereof, “Public office is a public trust. Public officers and employees must, at all times, be accountable to the people, serve them with utmost responsibility, integrity, loyalty and efficiency x x x.” That responsibility and accountability definitely apply to the use of scarce public funds, considering that the country’s fiscal deficit for 2024 is projected at P1,362.9 billion and domestic and foreign debt servicing at P699.2 billion.

Hontiveros was undeniably able to seize the moral high ground and the sympathy of millions of Filipinos in a daily struggle and dependent on “ayuda” from government to survive.

In replying to the vice president’s remarks, a media entity reports, Hontiveros addressed Duterte in the vernacular, “Hindi ko hinihingi ang respeto mo, VP Sara. Ang hinihingi ko sa iyo, at ng taumbayan, ay accountability. Kaya, i-account ‘nyo na lang kung para saan ang hinihingi ‘nyong confidential funds.” (I’m not asking for your respect, VP Sara. What I and the public are asking from you is accountability. So just account for the confidential funds that you’re asking for.)

“Kung hindi mo kayang irespeto ang mga katrabaho mo, i-respeto mo man lang sana ang paggasta ng pera ng bayan. Higit isang linggo na simula nang nag-hearing tungkol sa confidential funds, pero mas marami ka pang patutsada kaysa sa paliwanag,” the senator said. (If you can’t respect your colleagues, you should respect how public funds should be spent. It’s over a week since we held a hearing on the use of confidential funds, yet you have more personal attacks than explanation.)

‘Scratch my back, and I will scratch yours’

VP Duterte cannot be blamed for her particular dislike of the Makabayan bloc and the political opposition. She has reasons to believe that these lawmakers use their funds to advocate for and support the New People’s Army-Communist Party of the Philippines-National Democratic Front.

The growing list of the VP’s defenders, mostly legislators, cannot also be faulted for the manner in which they treat Duterte. She still possesses the charisma she has shown in the 2022 national elections by garnering a higher number of votes than Marcos Jr. The awe is still there, mindful that the courtesy could have been to “the highest official of the land” had she not conceded to run for VP instead.

Besides, neither the President nor the vice president questions the millions and millions of pesos in budget insertions by members of Congress. Quid pro quo. Fine!

But what about the public’s right to know? What about judicious allocation and use of taxpayers’ hard-earned money?

And the “fiscal collapse”? Blame it on the military and other uniformed personnel pension systems.