By Beatriz Marie D. Cruz, Reporter
CAUSE-ORIENTED groups called on the public on Wednesday to stay vigilant against any attempt by Congress to reinstate the proposed confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) that had been stripped from the offices of Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Z. Duterte-Carpio for 2024.
“Although a large part of it has been realigned [by] the House of Representatives, we still have to see if this will be retained by the Senate,” Anselmo “Jun” Tripon, Jr., convenor of the Movement for Good Governance and Genuine Democracy, told a briefing.
Mr. Tripon noted that the health sector has suffered a budget cut of more than P10 billion that reallocating such secret funds to civilian agencies appear unjustified.
Also on Wednesday, several organizations calling for the removal of secret funds for government agencies, including the Office of the President, launched the Abolish Confidential Funds Network.
“A confidential fund is a vague budgetary item that is not regularly audited,” Neri J. Colmenares, former congressman and current chairman of the National Union of People’s Lawyers, told the forum.
“In my three terms in Congress I learned a lesson from there. Sometimes, Congress is forced to do what it doesn’t want to do depending on the fight of the people outside,” he said.
“We’ve already scored a big victory in the [removal of] confidential funds. This issue has been raised for so many years but it was only now that we reached this far,” added Mr. Colmenares as he urged the public to continue protesting against agencies’ confidential funds.
Philippine congressmen on Oct. 10 stripped several agencies including the Office of the Vice President and Department of Education (DepEd) of their confidential funds, transferring P1.23 billion worth of these budgets to security agencies amid worsening tensions with China.
Meanwhile, Party-list Rep. France L. Castro stood by her criminal complaint against former president Rodrigo R. Duterte, who allegedly made a threat to kill her during a TV interview this month.
“Legitimate criticism of public officials are valid but what Duterte did was not criticism but threats,” Ms. Castro said in a statement.
It was her response after Davao City Rep. Paolo Z. Duterte said “public servants should not be onion-skinned and should not make use of this right as a tool to silence critics.”