The House good government and public accountability panel is eyeing to pass laws mandating disclosure of confidential fund proceeds and penalizing its misuse, among others.
The House panel made the decision as a result of its probe on the confidential fund use of the Office of Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) under Vice President Duterte.
Manila Representative Joel Chua, panel chairman, said the required documentation for confidential fund use, such as submission of acknowledgement receipts, is only at bare minimum for a huge amount of money which is a disservice to the public.
Based on their submissions to the COA, OVP and DepEd used P500 million and P112.5 million, respectively, worth of confidential fund from December 2022 from September 2023, with acknowledgement receipts containing wrong dates, unnamed signatures, non-readable signatories, among others.
At least 405 out of the 677 individuals who received confidential funds from OVP and DepEd have no birth record with the Philippine Statistics Authority, Chua said.
The proposed laws, Chua said, include:
- An Act Regulating The Allocation And Utilization Of Confidential And Intelligence Funds Imposing Penalties For Misuse And Misappropriation, and
- An Act Regulating Special Disbursing Officers (SDOs) And Imposing Penalties For Misappropriation
“Panahon na upang harapin natin ang katotohanan na hindi lahat ng mga nahahal o nalalagay sa posisyon sa gobyerno ay pwedeng basta-bastang pagkatiwalaan. Kailangan pa rin ng safeguards, pati sa ‘confidential funds.’ Ginagamit nila ang salitang ‘confidential’ upang magbigay sa atin ng ilusyon na kahit ito’y lihim, ang mga pondo ay ginastos nang tama,” Chua said.
(It is the time to face the truth that not all elected officials are trustworthy. We need safeguards for public funds, including confidential funds. They are using the word confidential to give us an illusion that because this is a secret fund, this was disbursed properly.)
“Ngunit bakit kailangan pa itong itago sa mga taong tunay na nagpondo nito? Karapatan ng mamamayang Pilipino malaman kung saan napunta ang kanilang pinaghirapang pera,” he added.
(But why do we need to keep this confidential from the people who funded this? The Filipino people deserves to know where their money went.)
Chua then cited that under existing rules, the fidelity bond imposed on SDOs is so low considering that they are handling huge amounts of confidential funds.
He cited the case of SDO of the OVP confidential funds Gina Acosta, whose fidelity bond for handling P8 million worth of confidential funds is only set at P500 million.
DepEd SDO Eduard Fajarda’s fidelity bond, on the other hand, only reached P4 million for P50 million worth of confidential funds to be disbursed.
“Kinakailangan ng pagsusumite ng mas detalyadong ulat, under oath…[mga detalyadong] accomplishment and liquidation reports, kasabay na ang mga ebidensya ng accomplishments na ito,” Chua said.
(We need more details on accomplishment and liquidation reports, and evidence to back these up.)
“Para sa akin, kapag nagamit na ang confidential funds para sa kanilang layunin, wala nang dahilan upang hindi maging bukas at maging transparent. Walang mawawala kung sila’y mag-uulat kung paano ginastos ang mga pondo dahil tapos na rin naman na ‘yung confidential operations kung saan ito pinaggamitan,” Chua added.
(Once the confidential funds are used and the goal for its use has been achieved, I don’t see any point keeping it hidden. We won’t lose anything if we are transparent on the use of public funds since this will be done once the confidential operations are done.)
The Vice President has repeatedly said she has never misuse public funds, and that the Chua-led panel’s inquiry on her budget use is just a test run for impeachment.
Since then, there have been two impeachment complaints filed against the Duterte. —AOL, GMA Integrated News
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