Six members of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) en banc want no confidential or intelligence fund in their 2017 budget.
In their October 24 letter addressed to Finance Committee Chairperson Senator Loren Legarda, the six commissioners with the exclusion of Chairman Andres Bautista, sought the help of the former in ensuring that no intelligence fund will be included in their budget.
The commissioners wrote the letter after learning that the House of Representatives approved a P1-million confidential or intelligence fund for the 2017 Comelec budget.
“We attended the plenary in the House of Representatives where the Comelec’s budget was taken up. To our knowledge, as of that date and time no confidential or intelligence fund was included in our budget, as approved or endorsed by the DBM (Department of Budget and Management),” read the letter.
That’s why they said the information that a P1 million confidential fund was added came as a surprise to them especially since Comelec has billions in savings.
“If a confidential fund is a line item in the General Appropriations Act, the Chairman can augment that fund from savings,” read the letter signed by Comelec Commissioners Rowena Guanzon and Christian Robert Lim.
The commissioners said the funds need to be removed in accordance with the policy adopted by the commission last Sept. 6.
“During our Sept. 6 en banc meeting, presided by Commissioner Christian Lim, all six commissioners passed a resolution (with Chair Bautista on official business), that as a matter of policy, the Commission does not want any confidential fund forming part of our budget,” the letter read.
“We hope that you can help us ensure that no such confidential fund of any amount is included in our Comelec 2017 budget. It is unnecessary and can be a source of graft and corruption,” it further read.
In his November 2 Memorandum to Guanzon, Chairman Bautista asked why such a sensitive matter was discussed without him.
“Common courtesy would have dictated that such a sensitive matter should have been discussed in the presence of the Chairman,” he said.
The post Comelec Refuses P1-M Intel Fund appeared first on Manila Bulletin.
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