A bill filed in the House of Representatives by a minority group seeks wider latitude for transparency in the use of confidential intelligence funds (CIF).
House Bill 7158 or Intelligence and Confidential Funds Transparency Bill, was filed by House Deputy Minority Leader France Castro, Assistant Minority Leader Arlene Brosas, and Kabataan party-list Representative Raoul Manuel.
The measure stressed that CIFs are public funds that should be open to public scrutiny.
It proposed the creation of a Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Intelligence and Confidential Funds (JCOCIF) which will conduct a semi-annual review of the status and implementation of all programs and activities financed by intelligence and confidential funds, and report to Congress not later than June 30 of each year.
The joint oversight congressional panel will be composed of five members of the House and five members of the Senate consisting of chairperson of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Finance, two members of the minority bloc in the Senate, chairperson of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability, chairperson of the House Committee on Appropriations, and two members of the minority bloc in the House, among others.
“The Commission on Audit (COA) has repeatedly noted the main issue in confidential and intelligence funds (CIF)—they escape genuine audit and public scrutiny, while the ones handling them escape accountability to the taxpayers. It is high time for the government to rectify this unconstitutional mode of allocating intelligence and confidential funds that are free from audit, public scrutiny, and official accountability,” Castro said in a statement.
Likewise, the bill provides that documents related to the use of CIF will be automatically declassified by the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Intelligence and Confidential Fund 10 years after the annual audit of such document, provided that, no information related to the use of intelligence and confidential funds may remain classified indefinitely.
The proponents said while there is a joint circular on guidelines on the entitlement, release, use, reporting and audit of the CIF on January 8, 2015, such parameters were not enough to ensure that these government funds are being spent for public welfare.
They cited the 2015 COA report showing that the Department of National Defense failed to liquidate P82.5 million in confidential and intelligence funds in 2011, 2012, and 2013, with almost the entire amount disbursed identified as “advances to officers and employees.”
“The select few who have powers over the disbursement of intelligence and confidential funds are only required to submit affidavits and like documents, usually self-serving and sketchy, which documents are subjected only to the most perfunctory of audits,” the bill read.
“Indeed, black budgets-practically bottomless funds with near-nil oversight-make for dubious policies, questionable effectiveness, and wasted money,” it added.