Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) chairperson Danilo Ramos has urged lawmakers to scrap the confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) of the Office of the President (OP), arguing the president already enjoys P282 billion in pork barrel embedded in the P6.32 trillion budget for 2025.
His appeal, however, fell on deaf ears as the House of Representatives approved the OP budget hurriedly on Sept. 8, 2024, two days before another House panel took out its scalpel to strip the largesse off the proposed P2.037 billion budget of the Office of the Vice President (OVP.)
Ramos warned that the dubious use of OVP’s CIF funds was exposed when the Commission on Audit (COA) found that Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio had paid “rewards” in the form of cash, “various products” and “medicines” and spent money for the purchase of office equipment. Sara also failed to distribute 1.5 million items like books, laptops, classroom chairs, and desks from DepEd warehouses and bungled the food program for schoolchildren, with rotten food being given away to kids in addition to expired bread and fruits.
Nearly P300 million of the funds of several regional DepEd offices were also deposited in unauthorized accounts rather than remitted to the National Treasury in violation of the law, COA argued. Ramos stressed that Sara’s cavalier treatment of taxpayers’ money is illustrative of fiscal abuse, which may as well worsen at the OP with loose procedures covering the disbursement of CIF.
“For 2025, Marcos Jr will get a whopping P4.5 billion in CIF or 44% of the total CIF budget without any checks by state auditors. We cannot allow Marcos Jr., Sara, and national government agencies to squander the hard-earned tax money that subsidizes the CIF. Tama na, sobra na ang pork barrel, dapat nang alisin ang CIF na ginagawa lamang balon ng korapsyon ng mga opisyal na gobyerno,” Ramos argued. The peasant leader is running for a Senate seat next year and is taking the cudgels for citizens who want an end to the pork barrel system and the plunder of CIF money.
Ramos reiterated that the CIF, the unprogrammed appropriations (UA) and other pork barrel in the 2025 budget are typically mismanaged and stolen. The huge amount of P282 billion from the P6.3 trillion proposed national budget will go to pork barrel and congressmen and senators are already angling to chop up the UA, which is dripping with lard for the 2025 midterm campaign. This early, politicians are queuing to get their share of the projects. The early birds will naturally catch a lion’s share of the worms.
He also blasted the deployment of billions of pesos in intelligence funds for red-tagging and surveillance activities against progressives, activists, and government critics. Agencies attached to the OP will get P12.9 billion — P8 billion for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), including the Barangay Development Fund (BDF), P100 million for the National Security Council (NSC) and P300 million for the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA.)
“Hindi katanggap-tanggap para sa mga magsasaka na mas malaki pa ang budget ng NTF-ELCAC kaysa sa budget ng National Food Authority (NFA.) Mas makatwiran ang badyet para sa lokal na produksyon ng pagkain at hindi badyet para sa panunupil sa mamamayan,” Ramos explained. KMP said the CIF, the UA and and other pork barrel items in the budget should be rechanneled to the budget for agriculture, local food production and social services.
