News Roundup 05 October 2023
Oct 05, 2023 • 4 min Read
Confidential fund issue a preview of 2028 clash? House just doing its job | INQUIRER.NET – MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives is merely doing its job when it sought to realign confidential funds (CF) lodged with the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd), Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez said on Thursday.
The Speaker said this in a press briefing in which he was asked whether the seeming dispute between the House and Vice President Sara Duterte — who recently claimed that people who undermined the CFs are against the well-being of the public — is a preview of the 2028 national elections.
Duterte heads both OVP and DepEd.
According to Romualdez, it was the Vice President who left it to Congress to decide whether the CFs should be realigned, even saying that they can live without it.
“I think people are reading too much into it, I think it’s very straightforward and simple: so the CIF (confidential and intelligence funds) topic all came up and there were a lot of discussions and debates in the House, and in fact even in the Senate,” Romualdez said in a press briefing.
“So borrowing the words of the Vice President — that even she says that she could live without it, and she would leave it to the sound discretion of the Congress for its proper disposition, under the circumstances we felt that it would best be realigned to the agencies and to the departments and into the areas where you just mentioned, that would be a priority,” he added.
Full Story at: Secret fund issue a preview of 2028 clash? House just doing its job (inquirer.net)
Romualdez: Confidential funds should be used for peace by best-suited agencies | INQUIRER.NET – MANILA, Philippines — Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez agrees with Vice President Sara Duterte’s comments that confidential funds (CF) must be used in the pursuit of peace and security, with the House leader noting that such funds should be given to the best-suited agencies.
In a press briefing on Thursday night, Romualdez was asked to react to Duterte’s recent remarks — that people who undermined the CFs meant for peace and security purposes are against public safety and security.
“With respect to the confidential fund, we are all for the confidential funds and we are all for peace, and security, we’re all for that, we’re in total agreement that the utilization of the confidential and intelligence funds is to promote peace and security,” Romualdez said.
“So yes, we are one with the Vice President in having to make sure that confidential and intelligence funds, you know, are always part of the equation and of course, best left with the agencies and departments that are most and best-suited,” he added.
Full Story at: Romualdez: Confidential funds should be used for peace by best-suited agencies | Inquirer News
Zubiri welcomes SC order for Congress answer on MIF | PHILSTAR.COM – MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri has welcomed the Supreme Court order for Congress to file its comment to the petition filed against the Maharlika Investment Fund law.
“It is part of the judicial process,” Zubiri said in a statement sent to reporters Tuesday night.
The Senate president maintained that the bill creating the country’s first sovereign wealth fund underwent the proper legislative process.
“(It) will therefore withstand judicial scrutiny and be upheld as constitutional,” Zubiri said.
He has instructed the Senate secretary to coordinate with the Office of the Solicitor General in the filing of comment.
Full Story at: Zubiri welcomes SC order for Congress answer on MIF | Philstar.com
2 gunrunners entrapped in Cotabato City | PHILSTAR.COM – COTABATO CITY — A police team seized an M16 assault rifle from two alleged gunrunners long under surveillance for illegal peddling of firearms both entrapped in a Barangay Rosary Heights 1, Cotabato City on Wednesday afternoon.
Brig. Gen. Allan Nobleza, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, on Thursday said that Razul Compania and Eddie Wong, Jr. fell in a sting laid by operatives of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group with the help of the Cotabato City Police Office.
Citing a report from the Regional Field Office of the CIDG-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, Nobleza said that the duo yielded peacefully when police agents frisked and cuffed them after receiving P50,000 worth of cash as payment for an assault rifle and ammunition.
Full Story at: 2 gunrunners entrapped in Cotabato City | Philstar.com
