The Senate finance committee, chaired by Senator Loren Legarda, approved on Tuesday the proposed P6,031,018,000 budget of the Office of the President and the P443.946 million proposed budget of the Office of the Vice President for 2018.
The OP’s budget is 70.10 percent lower than this year’s P20-billion budget while the OVP’s budget is a 3.6 percent increase from 2017’s P428.618-million budget last year
Meanwhile, Senator Antonio Trillanes IV questioned the lack of specific budget allocations of the six agencies under the OP covered by the intelligence and confidential funds. He said the six agencies are the National Coast Watch Council, Philippine Center on Transnational Crime, National Coast Watch System, Anti-Terrorism Council, Presidential Commission on Visiting Forces Agreement and Presidential Complaint Center.
“They didn’t allocate specific budget for these offices,” said Trillanes during the hearing of the Senate committee on finance.
He said they cannot expect the six offices under OP to perform well without the budget.
He said the 2018 proposed budget for the intelligence and confidential funds was P2.5 billion, which was the same as last year’s approved funds.
Deputy Executive Secretary for Internal Audit Alberto Bernardo said they had not received any problems in terms of the intelligence requirements and added that they haven’t received problems on intelligence requirements.
But Trillanes said that “agencies covered by the intelligence and confidential funds should submit their request for funding to the OP.”
“If the OP allocates enough funds to the six agencies, Trillanes said the government could then hold them accountable if they did not perform well. But if they have enough funds we can hold them accountable.”
Trillanes also pointed out that the clear allocation of funds to these offices would allow them to “proactively plan” of fund utilization.
Deputy Executive Secretary for finance and administration Rizalina Justol said the OP, as of August, had spent P800 million from confidential funds and P800 million from intelligence fund, out of their P2.5 billion budget for 2017 allocated to intelligence and confidential funds as of August.
Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo said the slight increase in their budget was due to the positions in the OVP which were already filled up.