Palace defends Philippine President Marcos' P4.5-B secret funds despite watchdogs' criticisms

Asia News Network

a day ago

August 15, 2025
MANILA – Malacañang has defended the billions of pesos in confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., despite calls from budget watchdogs to abolish these discretionary funds, especially for civilian agencies and offices, as these are prone to corruption.
Under the proposed P6.793-trillion National Expenditure Program (NEP) for 2026 that was submitted on Wednesday to both houses of Congress, the Office of the President (OP) will be receiving the lion's share of the CIF.
Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said the OP will get P4.5 billion in its CIF next year, which is almost half of the total P10.77 billion proposed budget for these secret funds.
'The president is the commander-in-chief and the chief architect of national security and foreign policy. The president needs these confidential and intelligence funds to do its mandate,' Palace Press Officer Claire Castro said in a briefing on Thursday when asked why the OP needs a huge amount of CIF for the fourth consecutive year.
'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,' she added.
OP's CIF was four times larger than that of the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (Nica), which the executive proposed to receive only P1.141 billion in CIF next year.
Nica is the primary intelligence gathering and analysis arm of the government of the Philippines in charge of carrying out overt, covert, and clandestine intelligence activities.
National Defense
OP's proposal is also higher than the CIF given to the Department of National Defense, which was allotted P1.8 billion.
Other executive offices, such as the Anti-Money Laundering Council, the National Security Council, and the Philippine National Police which will be sharing P2.292 billion among themselves.
The Commission on Audit (COA) will receive P10 million, while the Office of the Ombudsman has a proposed P51 million CIF.
According to a 2015 joint circular of the Department of Budget and Management and Commission on Audit, confidential expenses are those pertaining to surveillance activities in civilian government agencies.
Meanwhile, intelligence expenses are those related to intel information-gathering activities of uniformed and military personnel that have direct impact on national security.
Civil watchdogs have long criticized the opaque nature of CIFs, which are lump-sum allocations typically exempt from standard auditing procedures supposedly to safeguard national security and law enforcement.
Former Finance Undersecretary Cielo Magno called for the abolishment of the CIF of the OP.
'The President does not need such a large amount for confidential and intelligence funds because the intelligence agencies are already under his authority,' she said.
'Instead of placing it under the Office of the President, increase the intelligence budget of the intelligence agencies and civilian agencies that have intelligence work,' added Magno, an economics professor at the University of the Philippines.
It was during the term of former President Rodrigo Duterte that CIF of the OP ballooned to P2.5 billion from 2017 to 2019, and swollen further to P4.5 billion in the succeeding years, including Marcos' first four years.
`No moral ascendancy'
'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.
She added that the Congress which is teeming with allies of the President also 'has no moral ascendancy over Sara Duterte if it continues to grant confidential funds to the President.'
Castro, however, retorted by saying that President Marcos was not using the same questionable tricks of Vice President Sara Duterte.
'Let us remember that if the reporting is done correctly and the CIF are used properly, this will not be questionable,' the Palace official said.
'The comparison only arises when the reporting is not done properly and certificates or various receipts are used just to claim that the confidential funds were spent—that is the difference,' she added.
The Office of the Vice President (OVP) under Sara Duterte has not requested CIF for the second consecutive year since she was accused of misusing P612.5 million during her concurrent tenure as vice president and education secretary from 2022 to 2024.
An inquiry conducted by the House committee on good government during the 19th Congress found, among others, that the OVP disbursed confidential funds to beneficiaries with suspicious-sounding names like 'Mary Grace Piattos (combining the names of a restaurant and a potato chip brand),' 'Marian Rivera (an actress),' and 'Chel Diokno (a human rights lawyer and opposition figure).'
The panel's findings partly served as the basis of the articles of impeachment endorsed by 215 House lawmakers against her in February, but which were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in July for supposedly violating the one-year bar rule.