By Junex Doronio
EXPRESSING SURPRISE WHY SO MUCH FUSS over confidential and intelligence funds (CIF), Senator Alan Peter Cayetano has described it as “ironic” when seemingly there’s nary a whimper on personal data of thousands of Filipinos being exposed due to recent hacking incidents targeting government websites.
On Tuesday, October 17, Cayetano expressed his disbelief at “too much focus” on CIF issues after leading the probe of the Senate Committee on Science and Technology into the ransomware attack that targeted PhilHealth, and the other hacking incidents on the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and the House of Representatives website.
He added that the Senate website was also a target of a spike in hacking attempts.
“Napakalaking irony that the biggest issue now is people want to know (kung) saan ginagamit ang confidential funds. On the other hand, things that need to be confidential, like your health records, are now being hacked and exposed to the public,” he noted.
The controversy of CIF as another source of corruption was triggered when administration ally Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo surprisingly exposed that the Office of the Vice President (OVP) spent P125 million of its CIF in just 11 days in 2022.
Bowing to the public sentiment, congressmen crossed party lines and stripped Vice President Sara Duterte of her proposed P650 million CIF for 2024 for the OVP and the Department of Education (DepEd) which she heads as concurrent Secretary.
The funds were then realigned to the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA), National Security Council (NSC), Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR).
“It is essential to understand that this decision was made for the benefit of the nation and not as a personal affront to any individual, including VP Duterte,” declared the leaders representing the supermajority coalition, which supports the leadership of Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez. (ai/mnm)