In “insurgency-free” Davao City, biggest chunk of the budget is still for peace and order
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 07 May) – Davao City has been declared “insurgency-free” and “terrorist-free” as early as March 2022, a feat celebrated every year, but the biggest chunk of its 14 billion-peso budget for 2025 is still for Peace and Order and Public Safety Program at 2 billion pesos, almost twice the budget for the City Social Welfare and Development Office (CSWDO).
On top of the P2B budget for peace and order and public safety, there are three other related items that have been allocated funds: Office of the Public Safety and Security at P72.7 million, Peace 911 at P9.6 million and the City Peace and Order Council (CPOC) at P7.1 million. All together, these four budget items total P2.10 billion.
For this city of at least 1.8 million as of the 2020 census, the Top Five allocations for 2025 as approved by the Sangguniang Panlungsod are: P2,019,000,000 for Peace and Order and Public Safety Program (POPSP) under the Office of the City Mayor (14.1% of P14 billion budget), P1.1 billion for the CSWDO (7.7% of total budget), P924.5 million for the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (6.5% of total budget), P869.7 for the City Health Office and P867.9 million for the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (at 6.1% each of the total budget).
The P2 billion POPSP budget represents 39.2% of the Office of the City Mayor’s P5.1 billion allocation. The mayor’s budget is spread across the offices and programs under it, among them the peace and order program.
The peace and order and CPOC budgets for 2025 are the same as the budget in 2024, while the budget for Peace 911 rose from P9.2 million in 2024 to P9.6 million in 2025.
The Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP or City Council) passed Ordinance Number 0706-24 in December last year but copies of the budget ordinance were not made available to the media covering the beat. The SP website does not upload copies of budget ordinances.
MindaNews personally delivered a letter at the Office of the SP Secretary on January 16, requesting for a copy of the 2025 budget, followed it up with an e-mailed letter on January 28 and received a reply on January 31 that the requested copy “is not yet available, as it is still with DBM (Department of Budget and Management) for review.”
There was no other communication from the SP office until MindaNews e-mailed another follow-up letter on April 28. It replied “acknowledged” at 8:38 a.m. on the same day. MindaNews finally received a copy of the 772-page Davao City budget for 2025 on April 29, at 4:12 p.m.
P789.1M and P535M
Going through the document, MindaNews noted that out of the P2 billion budget for Peace and Order and Public Safety Program, the biggest chunk is P789.1 million (39.1%) for “other general services,” followed by P535 million (26.5%) for “donations.”
The allocations for “other general services” and “donations” in the POPSP total P1.32B, representing 65.6% of the P2B budget.
The P535-M allocated for “donations” under the POPSP is 107 times the P5 million budget for supplementary feeding program; 103 times the P5.2 million allocation for persons with disabilities support program; 8.5 times the P62.9 million budget for daycare services program; twice the P255 million annual financial assistance to all qualified senior citizens of Davao City; 3.6 times the budget of the City Agriculturist Office at P148.2 million; 13.5 times the monthly financial assistance to all qualified indigent solo parents of Davao City at P39.6 million; and 454.5 times the budget of the Davao City Office for Culture and the Arts which has a measly allocation of P1.1 million (P200,000 of that for the Davao City Culture and Arts Council), even as its budget is supposed to be P10 million.
Passed in November 2023, City Ordinance 0332-23 which created the office, provides for a 10 million budget “for the first-year operation” – which is 2025 — and subsequent annual budget. The ordinance also provides for a City Endowment Fund for Culture and the Arts which is still unfunded. The endowment fund will be a joint undertaking with the private sector.
Vice Mayor Jay Melchor Quitain told MindaNews that according to the Office of Councilor Myrna Ortiz, chair of the Committee on Finance, Ways and Means, “the office of the Culture and Arts proposed a budget amounting only to one million pesos in the 2025 Annual Budget of the City to initially cater to creation and the needs of the new office.” This new office, under the Office of the City Mayor, actually opened only this year. The law clearly states that P10 million be appropriated “for the first-year operation.”
Quitain said the appropriation of funds for every office will depend on their budget proposal to the Local Finance Board.
The monthly financial assistance for qualified indigent solo parents – at P,1000 per month — is based on Ordinance 0393-24 passed last year while qualified senior citizens will receive a P1,500 annual subsidy as provided under Ordinance 0954-22. That subsidy is to be increased to a maximum of P3,000 this year –“depending on the availability of funds” — through a proposed ordinance passed on second reading on Tuesday, May 6.
The 2025 budget, Councilor Dalodo-Ortiz said last year, is in line with Mayor Sebastian Duterte’s 12-point agenda: poverty alleviation, infrastructure development; sustainable environment, health, education and human resource development; agriculture and agribusiness, business and industrial support development; transportation planning, and traffic management; peace and order, disaster risk reduction and mitigation, good governance through innovative information and communication technology (ICT), and tourism and development and support services.
“Other general services” and “donations”
The budget ordinance provides under Section 5 on General Provisions that the appropriation for “other general services” shall be used for “the cost of other general services contracted by the agency not otherwise classified under any of the specific general services accounts. For BY 2025, the minimum daily wage of P530.00 will be implemented.”
The ordinance also states that the appropriation for “donations” refers to “donations to other levels of government and individuals and institutions.” It adds that the mayor is authorized to “extend such donations sans the legal formalities of the act to bona fide recipients, provided the latter acknowledges receipt thereof.”
Asked for clarification if intelligence work and hiring of assets fall under “other general services” and what these “donations” are and for whom, Quitain replied: “pertaining to peace and order safety program budget, the executive department is the appropriate office where your query can be addressed to, since the funding and budget pertains to said office.”
Unlike other programs or offices whose budget summary — the document containing the programmed appropriation and obligation by object of expenditure – is accompanied by a document containing the details of the “mandate, vision/mission, major-final output, performance indicators and targets” and the “program/projects/activity description,” the POPSP only has a one-pager budget summary.
Confidential, intelligence funds
There is no budget item listed as confidential and intelligence funds in the 772-page document but the ordinance notes in Section 5.9 under “Confidential, Intelligence and Extraordinary Expenses” that appropriation for “confidential expenses” and “intelligence expenses” shall be used “for expenses incurred related to surveillance activities in civilian government agencies that are intended to support the mandate or operations of the agency.”
According to Department of Interior and Local Government’s Memorandum Circular No. 99-65 on the utilization of funds for confidential or intelligence purposes, these funds may be sourced from appropriations for peace and order, or total annual appropriations, “provided that the total amount appropriated for Intelligence of Confidential undertakings shall not exceed 30% of the total annual amount allocated for peace and order efforts or 3% of the total annual appropriations, whichever is lower.”
The memo-circular states that the use of funds for Intelligence and Confidential activities shall be limited to purchase of information; payment of rewards; rental and other incidental expenses relative to the maintenance of safehouses; and purchase of supplies and ammunitions, provision of medical and food aid, as well as payment of incentives or travelling expenses relative to the conduct of intelligence or confidential operations.
In 2023, a review of the Commission on Audit’s annual audit reports on Davao City showed it spent a total of P2.7 billion in confidential expenses from 2016 to 2022, much higher than the confidential spending of larger and richer cities like Makati, Quezon City, Manila and Cebu, for the same period.
The COA audit reports show that Davao City’s confidential fund was P144 million in 2016, in P293 million in 2017, P420 million in 2018 and P460 million each year from 2019 to 2022).
In 2023, its confidential fund, according to the COA, was P530 million. (Carolyn O. Arguillas / MindaNews)
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