COA disallowance should forfeit intel fund’s confidential nature – lawmaker

December 9, 2024 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — The confidential nature of intelligence funds for agencies, particularly civilian agencies that have nothing to do with law enforcement, should be lost once the Commission on Audit (COA) declares a “notice of disallowance,” House committee on good government and public accountability chairman Rep. Joel Chua said yesterday.

“One of our recommendations with regard to confidential funds is that once a notice of disallowance has been issued, the confidentiality nature of the funds should be lost, which should pave the way for a very thorough investigation,” Rep. Joel Chua said in an interview with dzBB.

Chua heads the House’s probe on the alleged misuse of about P612.5 million in intelligence funds of Vice President Sara Duterte, P500 million of which were from the Office of the Vice President (OVP) while the remainder was in the Department of Education.

“The list of agencies as beneficiaries of confidential funds should also be limited, most especially those agencies or departments that have nothing to do with intelligence-gathering, with national security and the maintenance of peace and order,” he said.

He made this proposal as he underscored the need for greater transparency and accountability, particularly for funds repeatedly flagged with irregularities.

The committee’s investigation unearthed major irregularities in the use of confidential funds, including falsified acknowledgment receipts, disbursements to unauthorized individuals and multimillion-peso questionable expenses for safehouses and youth leadership summits.

These findings raised serious concerns about the lack of safeguards and oversight in the handling of confidential funds.

The legislative measures arising from the investigation will be filed in the House this coming week.

COA previously issued a notice of disallowance for P73 million of the initial P125 million in OVP confidential funds, which were spent within just 11 days, from Dec. 20 to 31, 2022 – or an average of P11 million per day. It was technically only seven days, since four are holidays.

State auditors also flagged the OVP’s P375 million allocation for confidential funds in 2023.

The committee has also been scrutinizing the alleged misuse of P112.5 million in confidential funds allocated to the DepEd during Duterte’s tenure as education secretary.