Palace: Intel funds not bad if ‘spent properly’

MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang defended the billions of pesos in confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) allotted for the Office of the President under the 2026 National Expenditure Program (NEP), stressing that the president would need them to perform his mandate to strengthen national security and pursue his administration’s foreign policy.

“We must remember: confidential funds are not bad if they are spent properly. Confidential funds only become bad when they are used by corrupt officials,” Palace press officer Claire Castro said in a briefing on Thursday.

“The president needs these confidential and intelligence funds to do [his] mandate,” Castro said in response to criticism over the OP getting the lion’s share of the CIF despite calls from anti-graft watchdogs to abolish the discretionary funds, especially those granted to civilian agencies.

Under the P6.793-trillion NEP submitted by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) for next year, the OP will get P4.5 billion in CIF, or almost half of the P10.77-billion total for the secret funds.

Corruption in CIFs

If approved in Congress, it will be the fourth consecutive year that the OP under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will receive P4.5 billion in CIF.

CIFs have come under close scrutiny, especially after Vice President Sara Duterte was accused of misusing P612.5 million in secret funds granted to the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education (during her stint as its secretary) from 2022 to 2024.

A House inquiry during the last Congress found, among others, that her CIF had been disbursed to beneficiaries whose identities aroused suspicion because of their odd-sounding names that mimicked those of a restaurant, a brand of snacks, or a politician.

The probe findings partly served as a basis for the impeachment complaint endorsed by 215 House lawmakers against Duterte in February, but which was voided by the Supreme Court in July for supposedly violating the one-year bar on filing complaints.

Higher than Nica

The OP’s CIF is four times more than that of the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (Nica), which asked for only P1.141 billion for next year. It is also higher than the CIF allotted to the Department of National Defense, which amounts to P1.8 billion.

Other offices, such as the Anti-Money Laundering Council, the National Security Council, and the Philippine National Police, will be sharing P2.292 billion in CIFs among themselves.

The Commission on Audit (COA) will receive P10 million under the NEP, while the Office of the Ombudsman will get P51 million.

Based on a 2015 joint circular issued by the DBM and COA, CIFs are for expenses related mainly to surveillance or intelligence gathering activities undertaken by civilian agencies.

Why the OP?

Former Finance Undersecretary Cielo Magno is among the critics questioning why the OP still needed a separate CIF when the president is already the commander in chief of the military, police, and their intelligence units.

“Instead of placing [CIFs] under the Office of the President, increase the intelligence budget of the intelligence agencies and civilian agencies that have intelligence work,” Magno said.

The OP’s CIF ballooned to P2.5 billion from 2017 to 2019 during the term of then-President Rodrigo Duterte. It grew to P4.5 billion per year in the first four years of Marcos.

“Marcos has no moral ascendancy over Sara Duterte if he continues to request confidential funds despite the fact that these are merely being embezzled,” Magno said.

 

 

(2025/08/15-05:36)

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