Former Senate President Franklin M. Drilon said on Thursday that the controversial multi-billion pesos confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs) could be used to fund troll farms and tokhang operations.
“It can be used for trolls. It can be used for tokhang operations. I am not saying that they were being used but because we are ignorant of how the funds are being used, we can’t help but speculate,” said Drilon in a TV interview on Thursday.
Operation Tokhang is the bloody anti-drug operation by the previous administration that killed thousands of Filipinos.
Drilon said agencies have wide latitude in using the CIFs, thus making it more susceptible to every kind of abuse and misuse.
“I agree with Senator Risa Hontiveros that it is being abused,” said Drilon.
“In the absence of documents and proof where they spent the funds, I do not discount the possibility that the funds were used to hire troll armies,” Drilon said in a separate statement.
The former senator recalled the Senate had previously investigated the reported use of government funds to hire troll armies and propagate fake news and misinformation.
Drilon had earlier called on the Senate to reconstitute the Select Oversight Committee on Confidential and Intelligence Funds.
“I am glad that Senator Zubiri has heeded the advice that we made. We were the first ones to make the call for the revival of the committee,” said Drilon.
He said that the first order of business should be to convene the oversight panel.
“Hopefully, this administration will be more open by an executive session so that the Senate and the House of Representatives can make a proper judgment in the next cycle whether the CIFs are properly used or whether the agency is entitled to CIFs,” Drilon said.
This as he lamented how the agencies with allocation for CIFs have expanded in the proposed General Appropriations Act of 2023, the Marcos administration’s first budget.
In the proposed P5.268-trillion spending outlay for 2023, he said there are seven agencies that do not have CIFs in the current budget but were allocated with millions of CIFs in the next year’s budget. This includes the Office of the Vice President, the Department of Education, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of Social Welfare and Development, Department of Foreign Affairs, the Office of the Solicitor General, and the Commission on Human Rights.
“In my book, we should take a good look at this. This is indeed something that we should be concerned about. This is subject to expansion and expansion. I cannot understand how you can justify intelligence funds for the DSWD or the OSG,” Drilon said.
Drilon said the amendments can be made to realign the CFIs to more important programs.
“I am confident that there will be some realignment because we need so much for other areas of governance,” said Drilon, citing the budget for calamity response, ayuda, and livelihood, among other items that need more funding.
