The Senate will revive a committee that would exercise congressional oversight on confidential and intelligence funds (CIIF), which are slated to reach P9.3 billion for various agencies under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration, Sen. Sonny Angara said Wednesday.
Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri filed the resolution forming a Select Oversight Committee to investigate government agencies’ use of their allocated confidential funds.
The proposed committee will be composed of three members – a senator from the majority and the minority, to be headed by the Senate President.
The 2023 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) marks P9,287,675,000 for confidential and intelligence funds—P4,330,048,000 marked as confidential funds and P4,957,627,000 as intelligence funds.
“According to Majo (Majority Leader Joel Villanueva) and SP (Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri), they will revive it after the budget [discussion],” Angara, chairman of the Senate finance committee, said in a text message to ABS-CBN
Discussions on the revival of the oversight panel followed concerns from Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III and Sen. Risa Hontiveros on the CIF.
The minority bloc is questioning the confidential funds allocated to agencies that have nothing to do with intelligence, information, or data-gathering activities, like the Office of the President, Office of the Vice President, and the Department of Education.
“It has long been the practice of the Senate to constitute a Select Oversight Committee for confidential and intelligence funds,” Zubiri said in filing his proposal.
Since the 10th Congress, he noted that the Senate has always formed the Select Oversight Committee, “and we are going to continue that for the 19th Congress.”
According to Zubiri, their job, “as an independent and democratic Senate, is to keep watch over the use of the national budget.”
“That is especially true for these sensitive funds, which are not subject to the usual auditing rules and procedures of the Commission on Audit,” he said.
As senators cannot identify the particulars of these funds’ usage ahead of time, Zubiri said the committee “is our way of subjecting these funds to checks and balances.”
“These funds are important in allowing our agencies to conduct necessary programs, operations, and activities for the safety and security of our people,” the Senate President said.
“But we need to be vigilant about how these funds are used, which will be the function of our Special Oversight Committee.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Raffy Tulfo asked why the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has no intelligence funds.
In jest, Sen. Grace Poe, sponsor of the DICT’s proposed budget, replied, “naubos na raw siguro sa iba” (others have probably spent it).
Tulfo said many agencies do not need intelligence funds but have been getting millions. He noted that DICT needs intelligence funds to fight cybercrime, “especially with the many scammers around us.”
Poe agreed to push to provide intelligence funds to DICT, saying it is crucial for the department “to monitor the security of our people.”
While DICT does not have its own intelligence funds, she said telecommunications companies like Smart and Globe have funds to make their own investigations, subject to court approval.
But Tulfo insisted that DICT needs its own intelligence funds instead of depending on telcos.
Former senator Panfilo Lacson said the Senate created the oversight committee in May 2017 through Resolution 361, with then-senator Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan designated as the panel’s chairman.
Honasan had sponsored the resolution that cited threats to the country’s “national security, including disturbance to peace and order by lawless elements, and the importance of gathering intelligence information by concerned government agencies.”
The committee allows the Senate to “continue exercising its oversight functions over the use, disbursement, and expenditures of confidential and intelligence funds granted to certain government agencies; and to provide vigilant legislative oversight over the conduct of these activities.”
Before its 2017 adoption, the oversight committee also existed in the 10th to 16th Congress.