Govt to review OP's need for intel funds

Malacañang, on the eve of submitting the proposed P1.645-trillion national budget for 2011 to Congress, will make a “proper review" to determine whether or not the Office of the President (OP) deserves intelligence funds. “We will make a proper review of the intelligence funds. And after the review, then we will be able to make more appropriate decisions on the matter," said Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) secretary Herminio Coloma at a press briefing Monday. Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, noting the belt-tightening measures of the government, is urging the OP to give up its intelligence funds. Coloma said the review would seek whether or not the use of intelligence funds, which are highly confidential, by the OP is still valid. The OP didn’t have intelligence funds until the term of Joseph Estrada, who formed the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF). His successor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, abolished the PAOCTF but retained the intelligence funds amounting to millions of pesos. Bagong Henerasyon party-list Rep. Bernadette Herrera has called for an inquiry on how various government agencies, including the police and military, are spending their intelligence funds to ensure transparency and curtail possible abuses. The military, however, warned that reducing its intelligence funds would hamper their operations against various threat groups. Interviewed in Camp Aguinaldo, Armed Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta said lesser intelligence funds may result in less or poor quality information from informants. “Of course it may affect our intelligence operations, but the Armed Forces will be able to come up with other schemes (to get information)," he said. “What is intelligence fund by the way? Basically it’s [used] to pay informants. So if you do not have those funds anymore, there will lesser inputs that will be coming in and lesser quality of information that will be coming," he added. Mabanta welcomed the proposal to have intelligence funds scrutinized. “Certainly, we are open to scrutiny. If we are directed by higher authorities, we will certainly oblige. There is no problem," he said. He, however, said such scrutiny should be done in a closed-door setting, noting that “intelligence funds are confidential in nature." - KBK, GMANews.TV