House bills regulating confidential funds, disbursing officers filed

Metro Manila, Philippines — Members of the House committee on good government and public accountability filed two measures relating to confidential funds and disbursing officers on Wednesday, Dec. 11.

The lawmakers filed House Bill 11192 or the Confidential and Intelligence Funds Utilization and Accountability and House Bill 11193 or the Special Disbursing Officers (SDO) Accountability, an offshoot of investigations on alleged confidential fund misuse in the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and Department of Education (DepEd) totaling P612.5 million.

“May mga parusa bukod syempre sa mga admin 'tsaka mga criminal liability. Nilalagay din dito na 'pag ikaw ay mapatunayan na nag-violate dito sa mga batas na 'to, magkakaroon ka ng perpetual disqualification to hold public office,” panel chairperson and Manila 3rd District Rep. Joel Chua said in a briefing.

[Translation: There are penalties aside from the administrative and criminal liabilities. We stated there that you will have perpetual disqualification to hold public office, if proven that you violated the measures when those become a law.]

The lawmakers added a qualification for SDOs: he/she should be a career official or employee instead of a political appointee whose tenure is subject to the appointing authority; the educational background of the SDO should be relevant to the position; and the approved fidelity bond is under the officer’s accountability.

“When you have familiarity between the head of agency and then the appointed person of trust, it would breed some sort – not really breed – but what you would see is it could be a possible avenue for collusion,” 1-Rider party-list Rep. Rodge Gutierrez said.

“Once you've determined, first and foremost, whether an agency will require confidential or intelligence funds, then they would also need a permanent position, which will not change from administration to administration. So less likely chances of collusion,” he said.

Lawmakers flagged a number of issues in the confidential funds of the OVP and DepEd such as payees not in the government database and typographical errors and lack of information in the acknowledgement receipts.

The committee will resume its investigation next year.