P51-M confidential fund, bahagi ng P1.7-B pondong inilaan para sa Ombudsman | UB
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Transcript
00:00 The camera continues to question the confidential and intelligence funds of various government agencies.
00:05 In the Senate, the Department of Migrant Workers is pushing for a confidential fund to be given to illegal recruitment.
00:13 We have first news, Ma'am Gonzales and Sandra Aguinaldo.
00:17 It's okay with Ombudsman that they have funded the budget department with a fund of less than 1.7 billion pesos compared to its request.
00:29 It's a portion of the 51 million pesos of the confidential fund that Ombudsman will use to investigate the alleged complaints.
00:38 But a lawyer asked how the spending of this fund was monitored.
00:44 The order of the Commission on Audit or COA and the Budget Department
00:48 is to print a supporting document in the Intelligence and Confidential Fund Unit under the COA
00:55 on how the confidential fund was spent.
00:58 But Ombudsman said...
01:00 No one told me that we will submit a receipt because how can I receive an intelligence officer
01:14 that I hired to look into a case.
01:23 If that's what you're saying, maybe all government offices can be encouraged to use confidential funds if there's no receipt.
01:34 Ombudsman also asked, in accordance with the recommendation of the draft charges,
01:39 to include some of the wrong transactions in the formalities, but the former President Rodrigo Duterte did not include them.
01:47 It is said that he prevented some officials to attend the investigation.
01:53 Would this constitute evidence against the former President?
01:57 By relating this order of the President, for them not to attend the Senate Committee hearings,
02:05 cannot be translated, Your Honor, into an activity where the President is directly involved in the purchase of the test kits, Your Honor.
02:17 Ombudsman also asked about the low number of people who will win this case,
02:23 but Mar Terez said that their performance should not be judged here.
02:29 If the confidential fund of other agencies is being questioned,
02:33 the Senate was pushed to give this to the Department of Migrant Workers or DMW.
02:38 There are many illegal recruiters there, illegal recruitment agencies that should be prosecuted.
02:44 There are many scammers who victimize FWs.
02:50 They need the confidential fund more.
02:52 Are you in need of this?
02:54 In the past, we have relied on law enforcement for the confidential funds.
02:57 The government asked for this, but the budget department did not include the P15.5 billion planned fund for DMW.
03:06 If there is, it can be used in the Migrant Workers Protection Bureau that is targeting illegal recruiters.
03:12 It will not only be used in local operations,
03:15 we also have international operations where our migrant workers' offices should also be included in the fight against illegal recruitment and trafficking in persons.
03:25 They also need confidential funds.
03:27 But some senators have a grudge against confidential funds.
03:31 If the Bureau cannot do its part to function and indeed would ask for confidential funds,
03:40 then I have to be convinced first because this is just the first year of the implementation.
03:46 I have yet to see the rationale and basis for it.
03:51 Let's be an example.
03:52 Civilian departments, let's not do this.
03:56 We should leave those departments or agencies that are concerned with national security.
04:04 Mr. Chair, I will be bereft of my personal honoring of Sec. Tuts if I don't put this on record that when she was alive,
04:13 she was against also taking in confidential funds for the DMW because she believed that within our mandate,
04:20 and if we work with law enforcement agencies, we will be able to do this mandate.
04:25 Senate Minority Leader Coco Pimentel also said that agencies that will receive confidential and intelligence funds should be reduced.
04:33 The DMW's budget for next week will be discussed.
04:38 This is the first news.
04:39 Mav Gonzalez,
04:40 Sandra Aguinaldo for GMA Integrated News.
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04:57 [Music]