The Office of the President (OP) under President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. is the top confidential and intelligence fund spender for 2023 with a combined P4.56 billion, the Commission on Audit (COA) Annual Financial Report said.
“The Office of the President remained to post the highest amount of confidential expenses, maintaining the same level as last year,” the COA said on Monday.
The OP spent P2.25 billion and P2.31 billion on confidential and intelligence funds in 2023, according to COA.
Confidential expenses are expenses related to surveillance/confidential activities in civilian government agencies that are intended to support the mandate or operations of the agency.
Meanwhile, intelligence expenses are expenses related to intelligence information gathering activities of uniformed and military personnel, and intelligence practitioners that have direct impact to national security.
Confidential expenses
Ranking second in confidential fund spending is the Justice Department with P683,853,000, followed by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency with P500 million.
Rounding up the top 10 spenders of confidential funds are the:
- Office of the Vice-President Sara Duterte with P375 million
- National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) with P127,413 million
- National Security Council (NSC) with P90 million
- Department of National Defense (DND) with P78,921 million
- Department of Interior and Local Government with P75 million
- Department of Finance with P61 million
- Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity with P49.5 million
- Department of Foreign Affairs with P35 million
Based on the data, the OVP outspent the NICA, NSC and DND.
Intel funds
In terms of intelligence fund spending, ranking second behind the OP’s P2.31 billion is the Department of National Defense with P2.25 million, followed by the Philippine National Police with P936,597,000.
Rounding up the spenders of intelligence fund for 2023 are:
- NICA with P522,709 million
- Philippine Coast Guard with P10 million
- Department of Justice with P100,000
Overall, the confidential fund spending increased to P4.42 billion in 2023 from P3.85 billion in 2022.
Likewise, intelligence expenses also increased slightly to P6 million in 2023 from P5.9 million in 2022.
According to COA, the Philippine government has spent over P10 billion in confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) in 2023, the first time in history.
In Maki Pulido’s report in 24 Oras on Monday, of the P10,443,087,000 CIF spent last year, P4.415 billion were confidential expenses and P6.028 billion were intelligence related.
An earlier joint circular said that confidential funds are meant for surveillance activities of government agencies to support their mandates.
But an economist pointed out that it seemed unnecessary for civilian executive offices to have confidential funds.
“Yung mga civilian agencies hindi dapat magkaroon…Kung kailangan nila ng intelligence e ‘di mag-refer sila sa intelligence network natin,” said Emmanuel Layco.
(The civilian agencies should not have such allocations… If they need intelligence services, they could refer to our intelligence network.)
Meanwhile, a former government official believes that confidential funds could have been used instead on housing, medical services, and additional classrooms.
“Mababawasan ang mga social programs, the human capital side,” said former Commission on Population and Development Undersecretary Juan Antonio Perez.
(The social programs will be lessened, the human capital side.)
Among the agencies that were earlier stripped off of their confidential funds were the OVP and the Department of Education – offices that were held by Sara Duterte.
For the 2025 general appropriations, the Department of Budget and Management said that the CIF was reduced by 16%. —with Vince Angelo Ferreras/RF, GMA Integrated News
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