Philippine lawmakers and progressive people's organizations raised alarm over the use of the people's money for so-called ‘confidential and intelligence funds’ (CIF) principally for the operations of the office of the president and vice-president during the national budget deliberations in Congress last 3 August. In addition, the people's taxes are also being used to fund the construction of infrastructures needed by US military bases in the Philippines.
CIFs are lump sum allocations set aside in the national budget to fund surveillance and intelligence information-gathering activities.
According to reports, some Php10.14B (about USD179M) have been allocated as CIF for the president, vice-president, and several executive departments. The Makabayan bloc (group of Philippine progressive lawmakers) likened the said funds to the pork barrel (funds designed to please voters and win votes) of previous administrations.
Marcos Jr. requested for Php9.2B (about USD163M), vice-president Sara Duterte asked for Php500M (about USD9M) while the Department of Education which Duterte leads has asked for Php150M (about USD3M) worth of CIFs. Meanwhile, the Department of National Defense proposed a Php1.898B budget (about USD34M).
In a statement, the Makabayan bloc warned that CIFS can be used without any detailed accounting and are not subject to public scrutiny on how such funds were spent. According to Makabayan, the lack of transparency over CIFs and given the track record of the current Marcos-Duterte regime make the CIFs vulnerable to graft and corruption.
On the other hand, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief Charles Brawner and Defense Sec. Gilbert Teodoro themselves confirmed the use of people’s money for the installation of military facilities in EDCA (Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement) locations across the country.
Among these constructions are the upgrade of a civilian airport in Cagayan province in northern Luzon to be used as refueling station for US military warplanes, the Balabac Military Runway in Balabac Island in Palawan province, a command-and-control center, the dredging of a ship port in the same island so US ships can dock, a hangar and a fuel depot in the Mactan-Benito Ebuen Air Base in Cebu, a hangar and several facilities in Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija province in central Luzon, another EDCA site.
The millions of pesos of monies these are coming from the so-called TIKAS Convergence Program of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).#