Malacañang yesterday admitted that the intelligence funds of the Office of the President are being used to monitor the political opposition.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, who made the admission, at the same time said they will not cut President Arroyo's intelligence funds even at the cost of the government being forced to resort to borrowing from local and international sources to bridge the budget deficit.
When asked during a press briefing if Mrs. Arroyo intends to slash her intelligence funds of close to P1 billion to patch up the deficit that could reach P200 billion at the end of this year, Ermita replied, “Of course not...you know, it is the opposition asking us to do this (spying) because they want to weaken the administration, so we can not run after them, that's what they want.”
He claimed that the opposition would have done the same if it was in power.
“But if we change positions, let us say they would be in our shoes... do you think they would like to cut their intelligence funds? Of course not. They want more resources to run after their detractors,” Ermita said.
His apparent slip coincided with Malacanñang's announcement of increasing by 18.7 percent the budget allocation for the “modernization”of the AFP for 2006.
Link to the whole article here.
It's nice to hear that our tax money is being used to spy on the opposition and other partisan purposes.
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