MANILA – The Office of the President (OP) under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. spent a combined P4.56 billion confidential and intelligence funds in 2023.
Based on Commission on Audit’s (COA) Annual Financial Report, the OP spent P2.25 billion and P2.31 billion on confidential and intelligence funds, respectively.
“The Office of the President remained to post the highest amount of confidential expenses, maintaining the same level as last year,” the COA said.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice ranked second in confidential fund spending with P683,853,000, followed by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency with P500 million.
Office of the Vice-President of Sara Duterte-Carpio is in fourth spot with P375 million spending, while
National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) used up P127,413 million confidential funds.
In terms of intelligence fund spending, the Department of National Defense ranked second with P2.25 million, followed by the Philippine National Police with P936,597,000.
NICA, on the other hand, is in fourth spot with P522,709 million usage, while Philippine Coast Guard spent P10 million intelligence funds for 2023.
Overall, the confidential fund spending increased to P4.42 billion in 2023 from P3.85 billion in 2022, while intelligence expenses also increased slightly to P6 million in 2023 from P5.9 million in 2022.
The Philippine government has spent over P10 billion in confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) in 2023, the first time in history, the COA report further said.
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.
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./PN
