Safeguards vs abuse of intel funds in place in 2012 budget — Drilon

The Aquino administration has placed certain safeguards on the proposed national budget for 2012 to limit the abuse of intelligence funds and the illegal conversion of other state funds. Sen. Franklin Drilon, chairman of the Senate finance committee, explained that the proposed 2012 budget will now limit the provision of intelligence funds to the military and law enforcement agencies. "There is an increase [in intelligence funds] but a number of agencies would no longer have appropriation for intelligence funds," he said after meeting with the Development Budget Coordinating Council (DBCC) on Tuesday. He said that the allocation for intelligence funds in 2012 is P1,329,034,000, which is an increase from this year's P1,141,658,000. But he said that agencies like the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), Office of Solicitor General (OSG), Public Attorney's Office (PAO), National Security Council (NSC), National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), Commission on Elections (Comelec), and Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, and the judiciary would not be granted intelligence funds next year. "These agencies which used to have intelligence funds in the budget would no longer be entitled to intelligence funds consistent with the policy that intelligence funds should be limited to (those) involved in intelligence gathering for security and law enforcement purposes," he said. On the other hand, Drilon said there was an increase in intelligence funds for the Office of the President (from 400 million to P600 million); the Armed Forces of the Philippines (from P124 million to P136.3 million); and Department of Justice's Witness Protection Program (P166.4 million to P172.9 million). No more conversion But aside from cutting down on the allocation of intelligence funds, Drilon said the 2012 budget also placed a stopper on the conversion of personnel funds in the national government. He said there are 66,957 unfilled items that are already funded in the current budget. "This is a source of conversion not only in the military but in also other agencies which would come in the form of bonuses and other in addition to the basic pay," he said. "What happens is that a position unfilled but is funded will be considered as savings on the basis of which it is realigned to other items as in the case of the most abusive was the case of the AFP where there was a lot of conversion to other purposes resulting in funds for pabaon and all that stuff," he added. “Pabaon" refers to the cash gifts given to retiring military chiefs usually amounting to millions of pesos. To prevent this, Drilon said the budget for the 66,957 unfilled positions, which is around P23 billion, will be placed into what is known as a miscellaneous personnel benefit fund. "This will not be automatically released. It will only be released when there is actual hiring to be done so that the practice of converting this budget into savings and converting this into other items in the budget would no longer be possible," he said. During the DBCC briefing, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad also said that they will be also be implementing the use of purchase cards to automate the government's procurement process starting next year. "It's like a debit card... we are in discussion with certain providers who will pilot it in the last quarter of the year," he said. - KBK, GMA News