'Civilian agencies should not have CIF'

Albay 1st District Rep. Edcel Lagman said that agencies that are not entitled to confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs) should not be given «secret funds» at all.

In a statement sent to reporters, Lagman said that there is no «rhyme or reason for an agency not entitled to CIFs to retain any appropriation at all as an 'accommodation' or 'courtesy' allocation.»

He stressed that any non-entitlement to CIFs must be absolute and deprivation of allocation must be total.

In an earlier statement, Lagman defended the possible reallocation of confidential and intelligence funds to agencies that protect the West Philippine Sea.

Lagman, president of the Liberal Party, added that the National Expenditure Program (NEP), which is the basis of the General Appropriations bill, is not cast in stone.

He said that the House of Representatives «can amend, modify, delete, realign, reduce, increase, and reallocate items of expenditure in the NEP as long as the ceiling of the total expenditure budget proposed by the President for the entire government is not exceeded.»

«The reallocation of confidential and intelligence funds from one department or agency to another is merely a transfer of allocation from one office to another which does not result in exceeding the total ceiling proposed in the NEP, » Lagman said.