Senate to probe P1.4-B intel fund under 2011 budget

The Senate will scrutinize where the P1.425-billion allocation for intelligence funds under the proposed 2011 national budget will actually go, Sen. Franklin Drilon said Tuesday. The proposed intelligence fund for 2011 is 3.26 percent higher than the P1.38 billion allotted for the same purpose this year. "We want an entire picture of how much would be intelligence funds of the entire government structure because we suspect that this again (is) being abused," said Drilon after the initial hearing on the proposed 2011 budget. The senator said that they plan to "disaggregate" many of these intelligence funds, which are not really used for intelligence purposes, and to reclassify such expenditures in accordance with what the auditing code allows. "We might as well be transparent," he said. "We will ask them, where do you use this? For what agencies? And if the use is valid, then we convert it." Earlier, Drilon revealed that the state firm Clark Development Authority’s (CDC) liquidated it P10-million intelligence fund using only certificates of expenditure. "He (CDC chief executive officer Benigno Ricafort) spent it without any indication as to how he spent it and whether or not really it is a proper item for the use of intelligence funds, so all of these we will look into," he said. Drilon, however, noted that the P1.425-billion allocation under next year's proposed budget does not include intelligence funds of local government units and government-owned and -controlled corporations. —Kimberly Jane Tan/VS GMANews.TV