House panel: No confidential funds for OVP, DepEd, DA, DICT, DFA

MANILA, Philippines — The Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd), both under Sara Duterte, will no longer have confidential funds under the proposed P5.768-trillion budget for 2024, lawmakers announced yesterday.

The House of Representatives has removed a total of P1.23 billion in confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) for the OVP, DepEd and three other agencies.

The Departments of Agriculture (DA), Information and Communications Technology (DICT) as well as Foreign Affairs (DFA) were also not allotted CIF.

The DFA had earlier declined the Senate’s offer to have CIF to augment its diplomacy work overseas.

The decision to strip the OVP, DepEd, DA, DICT and DFA of CIF was made by a “small committee” that Speaker Martin Romualdez tasked to realign budget allocations for 2024.

“We believe that the House is on the right side of history. We are responding to the call of the times,” Marikina Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo, senior vice chair of the House committee on appropriations, said at a press briefing. “The volatile situation in the West Philippine Sea calls for immediate and decisive action to protect our national sovereignty.”

Quimbo was accompanied at the media briefing by Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Zaldy Co, who chairs the House appropriations committee, Majority Leader Zamboanga Rep. Manuel Jose Dalipe and Minority Leader Marcelino Libanan of 4Ps party-list.

A total of P1.23 billion in CIF was realigned to security agencies in charge of monitoring and protecting the country’s territorial rights in the West Philippine Sea.

The National Intelligence Coordinating Agency received P300 million in CIF; National Security Council, P100 million and Philippine Coast Guard, P200 million.

The Department of Transportation was allotted P381.8 million worth of CIF for airport development and expansion of Pag-asa Island Airport. The amount is part of the P3-billion total allocation for the said airport.

The P381 million was the only portion taken from confidential funds.

Budget allocations for the national security agencies reached P981 million.

The balance of P285 million was earmarked to other agencies for MOOE or maintenance and other