CORRECTION: P250 MILLION, NOT P184 MILLION CUT FROM NOY INTEL FUND
MANILA, NOVEMBER 9, 2010 (STAR) By Delon Porcalla - The reduction in the intelligence funds of President Aquino was in the amount of P250 million and that P4 billion is the total budget of the Office of the President (OP) for 2011, Malacañang clarified yesterday.
Secretary Herminio Coloma of the Presidential Communications Office for Operations said the total reduced amount in intelligence funds was P250 million - from P650 million to P400 million.
"The P184 million that was reduced was from the total budget of the OP," he clarified.
"The funds that were saved was used for the Truth Commission and the office of Secretary Ricky Carandang, among others," Coloma said.
On average, the intelligence budget of Mr. Aquino's predecessors ranged from P500 million to as much as P600 million.
In 2009, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo allocated P538.4 million to an office called the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission.
As it stands now, it is only P400 million. Coloma said the reduction in intelligence funds was in line with the Aquino administration's austerity measures, and to give priority to other basic services, like education and healthcare, and conditional cash transfers for the poorest of the poor.
"This is consistent with our belt-tightening efforts and our desire to cut unprogrammed, unaudited fund sources in the spirit of transparency and fiscal discipline," he said.
The cost-cutting measure was recommended by Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. who wanted the OP expenses to remain low, which he told the Senate budget hearing last month.
Ochoa said the Palace has even slashed its budget request for the next fiscal year by 4.3 percent to P4.075 billion from the previous administration's P4.259 billion in line with the cost-cutting policy of Mr. Aquino.
It was the same budget that was approved by the committee on appropriations of the House of Representatives.
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