Intel funds, yes. Brigada Eskwela, no.

In the proposed 2023 national budget, some ?800 billion plus is being sought for the entire education sector, guaranteed by the Constitution to get the largest chunk of all public expenditures. Of that amount, some ?700 billion plus will be for the Department of Education. In turn, about half-a-billion pesos will go to the so-called confidential and intelligence fund of the DepEd.

In a joint circular issued in 2015 by the Commission on Audit, the Department of Budget and Management, Department of Interior and Local Government, Governance Commission for Government-Owned and Controlled Corporations, and the Department of National Defense, confidential and intelligence funds have been clearly defined with guidelines issued on what, where, when, and how the funds can be used.

The circular can easily be Googled as there is no space in this column to reprint the definitions and guidelines. But if you have neither the time nor the inclination to do any Googling, suffice it to say confidential and intelligence funds are largely what you think they are. And that is the reason why this column was written --to give vent to my wonderment over confidential and intelligence funds for DepEd, to the tune of ?500M?!

I can understand why the DILG or the DND, and by a stretch, even GOCCs might need some confidential and intelligence funds. But DepEd?! What cloak-and-dagger spy-ops nonsense can the DepEd possibly conjure to require such a humongous amount of funds. No offense meant to teachers, many of whom are dear friends and relations, but if anyone anywhere needs some info on anything, just ask a teacher. And it's free.

I am personally and genuinely aghast at what I think is a huge and needless expense although others who have voiced similar observations are clearly motivated by other, more politically-fired agendas. The confidential and intelligence funds meant for the DepEd drew flak largely because the education secretary also happens to be the vice president, Sara Duterte.

While it does not happen every year that the DepEd is given such kind of fund, this certainly is not the first time that it is. And while in the previous occasions that it did no similar uproar had been heard (indeed, this is the first time I sat up and took notice), it almost goes without saying the uproar this time may have as much to do with Sara being a Duterte than it is for anything else.

A dead giveaway to the political nature of the feigned concern over any waste of public funds by the DepEd under Duterte's watch is the quick and automatic reference to Leni Robredo during whose tenure as vice president her office never received any such similar funds. To me it does not matter which political figure happens to be given control over such funds. If it is needless and a waste, it is needless and a waste.

It is needless and a waste at DepEd because it is not a spy agency. National security is not its concern beyond inculcating nationalism in young students' hearts and minds. Educators are not spooks. DepEd already has the fattest budget of all. Why fatten it some more to tease the crocodiles. Don't think Customs, BIR, DPWH. DepEd is way up there in reptilian infestation. Just look at Brigada Eskwela.

Brigada Eskwela is ostensibly a social experiment in school-home cooperation in which parents and teachers use their own time, money and effort to clean and spruce up schools at every school opening. Many hail the experiment a success. Meanwhile, those who hold the budget to clean and spruce up schools at every school opening are watching and laughing in the cool comfort of anonymity in bank secrecy.