This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.
An almost forgotten episode in Philippine history is when a smuggling scandal that implicated two congressmen in the late 1980s led to the a near-zero budget for the office that wrote the controversial report
Calls to grant a government agency zero budget are not new, and no institution was actually fully deprived of funding in recent Philippine history.
One office, though, came so close, when the Economic Intelligence and Investigation Bureau (EIIB) received a P1 budget during the administration of Corazon Aquino.
The EIIB, headed by then-retired Filipino army general Jose Almonte, was then a bureau under the Department of Finance. Sometime in the late 1980s, the agency butted heads with the House of Representatives due to a smuggling scandal that implicated two congressmen.
That piece of history was narrated by Almonte in his book “Endless Journey: A Memoir” as told to Rappler editor-at-large Marites Dañguilan Vitug, published in 2015.
According to Almonte, he once sent a confidential policy report to then-finance secretary Vicente “Ting” Jayme, listing possible courses of action to disempower smugglers. The media got hold of a copy, and zeroed in on the contents of the annex, which name-dropped “public personalities… as possibly involved in smuggling activities.”
Among the politicians implicated in the scandal were Quezon lawmaker Bienvenido Marquez, who supposedly “protected the smuggling of cigarettes thru Quezon,” and Tarlac congressman Jose “Aping” Yap, who allegedly “was found to have engaged in a business that used smuggled engines.”
Yap and other congressmen, Almonte said, invited him to dinner and asked him to fire his deputy who was in charge of running EIIB operations, Guillermo “Willy” Parayno Jr., who would later lead the Bureau of Customs. Almonte said no to the request.
“A majority in Congress, pressured by some of their peers, exacted their revenge and slashed our proposed annual budget from P121 million to P1. Asked by their reporters if this move was equivalent to the abolition of the EIIB, Majority Floor Leader Francisco Sumulong said, ‘In effect, yes,’” Almonte wrote in his memoir.
“But Representative Rolando Andaya, who chaired the appropriations committee, told me not to worry, because they did not reduce the EIIB budget to zero. If that happened, it meant that we had to close shop. But having a P1 token budget allowed us to stay afloat because our office could still receive additional funds should Congress change its mind,” he added.
Almonte recalled that his agency was able to operate during the succeeding budget-deprived year by relying on the intelligence funds of president Aquino.
He said that Congress’ move did not slow down EIIB, as he and his men managed to intercept six vans of smuggled goods worth P24 million less than a day after they were awarded the minuscule P1 budget.
Almonte believed the agency had the public’s support despite the controversy.
“What touched me the most was that a 12-year-old girl called DZMM and volunteered to donate P1 from her daily baon (school allowance) to help the EIIB. There were many other callers who suggested the abolition of Congress instead. They considered the one-peso budget a childish act,” he said.
References of this chapter in the country’s legislative history are not easy to find online. A Google scan mentioned the budgetary punishment slapped against EIIB in a 1989 piece by The Christian Science Monitor, as well as a Philippine Star opinion column by political scientist Alex Magno in 2006. The controversial EIIB report was also mentioned in a 1988 report of the United States Joint Publications Research Service.
These days, the Office of the Vice President is also on the receiving end of calls to be punished with a zero budget, although a House panel already moved to slash its funding proposal for 2025 by more than half, from P2.037 billion to P733 million.
There are some similarities to both scenarios — particularly on the spat between Congress and the head of an executive agency — but there’s also a world of difference. Vice President Sara Duterte has repeatedly dodged the burning questions on her handling of public funds, and she has snubbed the budget briefing scheduled by the lower chamber for her office. – Rappler.com
