Senate Minority Leader Aquilino ‘Koko’ Pimentel on Monday said he would request the deletion of the Office of the Vice President's (OVP) confidential funds at the "proper time."
During the Senate deliberation on OVP’s proposed Php 2.92 billion 2023 budget, Pimentel once again expressed his opposition to the office's Php 500 million confidential funds.
"As per Congress's definition of confidential funds, the OVP is not entitled or should be given confidential funds," he said.
Confidential funds are provided to civilian agencies for their intelligence activities which include gathering, evaluation, correlations, and security information.
Pimentel suggested transferring OVP's CIF to other government agencies that needed it such as the Philippine Postal Corporation (PhilPost).
He said PhilPost requested the same amount as OVP’s CIF of Php 500 million for its 2023 budget.
“Ang confidential funds, pwede namang i-let go,” Pimentel said.
Senator Juan Edgardo ’Sonny’ Angara, who sponsored the OVP’s next year’s budget, disagreed with the Senate Minority leader.
“Although Philpost may have a need. I think maybe we should look for other sources and not prejudice the Office of the Vice President as the second highest official of the land who deserves our support," he said.
Angara said the Senate should help the OVP to succeed.
It was only Pimentel who protested the OVP's budget and it was swiftly approved after.
Last week, the Senate approved the proposed Php 8.96 billion of the OP which includes a CIF of Php 4.5 billion.
Pimentel also said that he would move for the deletion of OP's intelligence fund at the proper time.
