OP to get largest intelligence fund, increase in travel allowance in 2007

The Office of the President (OP) gets the biggest slice in the intelligence fund which also marked an increase President Arroyo’s travel expenses for 2007.

Briefing the House appropriations committee on the OP outlay yesterday, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said Malacañang’s allocation will increase by P291.2 million under the proposed P1.136-trillion national budget for 2007.

Ermita claimed the increase is largely due to the appointment of 12 presidential assistants, "provision for increases in additional compensation, transportation and representation expenses, PhilHealth contributions and employees compensation insurance premiums, increase in the provision for local and foreign travels of the President, and increase in capital outlays."

Ermita, however, failed to identify the President’s supposed assistants which will apparently bloat the OP’s budget by nearly P300 million, from P3.5 billion this year to P3.8 billion next year.

In the budget documents submitted by Ermita before House appropriations committee chairman Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, it indicated Mrs. Arroyo is keeping her P650-million intelligence budget, the single biggest amount of intelligence funds in the annual outlay.

Of that huge sum, P500 million would be available to her as head of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PACC), an agency she inherited from ousted President Joseph Estrada.

Shortly after taking over from Estrada in 2001, she vowed to disband the commission and its operating arm, the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force. She subsequently decided to keep PACC and dismantle PAOCTF.

During Estrada’s time, the task force was headed by then Philippine National Police chief and now opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson.

Budget documents also showed Mrs. Arroyo’s "traveling expenses" would increase by P48.4 million, from P213.1 million this year to P261.5 million in 2007.

OP representation expenses would go up by P3 million, from P48 million to P51 million. Provisions for "additional compensation" would increase by P15 million to P22.7 million.

No one among the members of Salceda’s committee asked Ermita to explain how the huge amount of intelligence funds available to the President have been used.

They knew that such funds are not subject to detailed and strict accounting.

Instead, some members complained that Mrs. Arroyo has been withholding their pork barrel funds because they belong to the opposition.

Rep. Mario Aguja of the party-list group Akbayan told Ermita that while Mrs. Arroyo has released the full amounts of pork barrel funds for 2007 and previous years of her allies, members of the opposition still have to get even a centavo of their allocations for this year.

What is worse is that some opposition members have not been receiving their funds since late 2004, he said.

"These funds, which by the way are taxpayers’ money, are supposed to be legal and regular entitlements of our districts and constituents, and yet the President has been impounding them because we are in the opposition," he said.

Ermita promised to look into the releases and to inform the appropriations committee of his findings.

The committee finished its hearings on the proposed P1.136-trillion 2007 budget yesterday.

Salceda said the plenary debates on the measure might begin next week.

"We should be finished with the budget before the first congressional break on Oct. 14. We have enough time to pass it. It’s safe to assume that the recycled 2005 appropriations law will no longer be used next year," he said.