Duterte’s P4.5b intel funds too much: Lacson
Published on: Saturday, September 12, 2020
By: SBS CBN News
MANILA: Senator Panfilo Lacson said Friday he would question President Rodrigo Duterte’s confidential intelligence funds, which reached P4.5 billion for the year 2020 while requesting a slightly lower allocation for next year.“[It is] still a bit too much,” he said. “When you say P4.5 billion a year under one entity, which is the Office of the President — which is not a big office — how do they spend that?”
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On top of this, the President also has control over the intelligence funds of “the entire bureaucracy,” including that of the defence department, the police, customs and internal revenue bureaus, and the National Security Agency, said Lacson.
Duterte also has a share from the funds of Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) that run up to “billions of pesos every year,” he added.
Asked about his fellow lawmakers’ possible reluctance to slash the funds of Duterte’s office, Lacson said, “Let’s see.”
“I always say what I mean and I always mean what I say. In any budget deliberation, I really ask questions, I want things to be clarified, especially because this is our money,” he said.
Lacson is hoping his fellow lawmakers will not be reluctant to slash the funds of Duterte’s office
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He also expressed concern over estimates that the national debt could balloon to P12 trillion due to the coronavirus pandemic. The debt is at about P9.16 trillion, up from P7.8 trillion in January, Lacson said.
“Where will this bring us? The next generations of Filipinos, you know, [could become] baon sa utang (buried in debt),” he said.
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