News Roundup 11 October 2023
Oct 11, 2023 • 4 min Read
OVP, DepEd, 3 other offices lose P1.2B in secret funds | INQUIRER.NET – MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Sara Duterte will lose P650 million in confidential funds after a four-member panel of lawmakers decided to strip five government agencies of their allocation in the proposed national budget for next year.
On Tuesday, the panel led by the House appropriations committee chair, Rep. Elizaldy Co, announced amendments totaling P194 billion in the 2024 budget, including P1.23 billion in realigned confidential funds.
The realigned confidential funds represent 25 percent of the original P4.864-billion allocation for 2024. The P5.277-billion budget for intelligence funds, meanwhile, was untouched.
Duterte, who is concurrent education secretary, stood to forgo the most as the Office of the Vice President (OVP) had sought P500 million in confidential funds, while the Department of Education (DepEd) had asked for P150 million.
The other agencies that would get zero confidential funds are the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), the Department of Agriculture (DA), and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).
Full Story at: OVP, DepEd, 3 other offices lose P1.2B in secret funds | Inquirer News
‘We pass COA audit’: House Sec Gen on Duterte’s tirade on House being rotten | INQUIRER.NET – MANILA, Philippines — The secretary general of House of Representatives is in agreement with the view of former president Rodrigo Duterte — that government expenditures should be fully auditable.
He said the chamber has passed the review of Commission on Audit (COA).
Velasco made the statement on Wednesday in reaction to the tirades of former President in an interview over SMNI broadcast network.
This, however, is not the main point of the matter.
The former chief executive had accused House of being the most rotten institution in the country.
He had claimed the lawmakers’ pork barrels are unlimited.
Duterte had also alleged that House Speaker Martin Romualdez is distributing these public funds to lawmakers.
On this second point, Velasco presented an audit report from COA.
The report showed the chamber has not received any notice of disallowance from the state auditors.
This notice is a document that will indicate the presence of anomalous or irregular transactions.
(That means, we passed the COA audit.)
Full Story at: ‘We pass COA audit’: House Sec Gen on Duterte’s tirade on House being rotten | Inquirer News
House, Senate: No confidential fund allocations | PHILSTAR.COM – MANILA, Philippines — Officials from both chambers of Congress have denied allegations that the House of Representatives and the Senate have allocations for confidential funds.
In a statement Wednesday, House secretary-general Reginald Velasco said that the lower chamber has no confidential and intelligence funds.
“All line items in our budget are subject to regular accounting and auditing rules and regulations,” he said.
Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo, senior vice chair of the House committee on appropriations, earlier said that the “allegation on social media about the P1.6 billion is actually extraordinary expenses.”
Senate secretary Renato Bantug Jr. also refuted reports claiming that the upper chamber, under the leadership of Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri, has a confidential fund amounting to P331 million for 2023.
Full Story at: House, Senate: No confidential fund allocations | Philstar.com
DICT to appeal removal of confidential funds, warns of blow to cybersecurity | PHILSTAR.COM – MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Information and Communications Technology warned that the lawmakers’ move to strip the agency of its confidential funds conveys a “wrong message” that the Philippines is not committed to safeguarding its cyber borders.
DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy said Wednesday that the department will send an appeal to Congress to restore its proposed P300 million in confidential funds.
“It will be a big blow. Basically, we’re sending the wrong message to all cybercriminals that the Philippines is an open city, that they can commit whatever they want here and the government will not be able to do anything to go after them or prevent them from doing their criminal acts here,” Uy said in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel.
The House of Representatives decided Tuesday to allocate zero confidential funds to the Office of Vice President Sara Duterte, Department of Education, DICT, Department of Agriculture, and Department of Foreign Affairs in the proposed national budget for next year.
“While cyber threats and cyber criminals are increasing and becoming more sophisticated and they have more funds to do so, the Philippines, going against the tide of the rest of the world, is defunding our cybersecurity and is actually announcing to the world that we’re not interested in protected our cyber borders,” Uy said.
Full Story at: DICT to appeal removal of confidential funds, warns of blow to cybersecurity | Philstar.com
