In a statement, House appropriations committee chairperson Zaldy Co confirmed that the two offices are among the civilian agencies whose confidential and intelligence funds will be realigned to augment the budgets of government agencies at the forefront of efforts to address tensions in the West Philippine Sea.
“So far that’s what we have identified, but we’re still looking at other sources,” Co said in a statement on Wednesday night, September 27, referring to the OVP’s P500-million confidential fund and the DepEd’s P150-million confidential fund.
“Now is the time to give our intelligence community the means to perform their duties, especially in these pressing times when we’re facing serious concerns in the West Philippine Sea,” he added.
I’m expecting a catch here, what’s the catch? Some discretionary funding for the OVP? I’m cynical enough not to believe that the House of Representatives just gave in to reasonable arguments just like that.
Did Sara(-h) and the Dutertes agree to this? Or perhaps the congressmen thought that the Dutertes aren’t as politically valuable as they once was?
From one of the comments in the article:
the secret cause is the conflict between VP Sara Duterte and House Speaker Martin Romualdez and the recent action of the People’s Republic of China in the West Philippine Sea. Hence, it is not really the People’s Clamor which motivated these two Legislative Chambers to change their minds.
Now, that’s more like what I expected.
EDIT: Added a link to the comment to the quoted portion.
I’d guess the catch here is that the 125m that was already stolen is kept by the VP. I imagine that no one will be talking about it being unconstitutional anymore in the coming weeks.
Rappler with the sneaky editorials, lmaoooo.
Oh, the part I quoted? It’s from a comment referring to an opinion expressed by a “YouTube analyst” in a linked video.
Government: “We create problems to solve them.”
