Marcos retains P4.5-B confidential, intel fund for 2025 – DBM
The Department of Budget and Management turns over to the House of Representatives the proposed national budget for 2025.
MANILA, Philippines — The Office of the President (OP) has a P4.56-billion confidential and intelligence fund (CIF) allocation for the proposed 2025 national budget, which is equal to what the office got in 2023 and 2024.
Documents released by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) on Monday, particularly the Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing for Fiscal Year 2025, showed that the OP got a P2.310-billion intelligence fund and P2.250 billion for confidential expenses.
Similar figures were allocated in 2023 and 2024, or the first two budgets prepared by the DBM under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
READ: OVP says it didn’t request confidential funds for 2025
In 2021, during the time of former President Rodrigo Duterte, the OP asked for P2.250 billion each for confidential and intelligence funds.
Confidential fund
The Office of the Vice President (OVP) did not get confidential fund (CF) allocation as it did not request any secret expenditures for 2025.
READ: VP Sara Duterte: Secret funds’ critics ‘enemies of the people’
Last year, the House of Representatives removed the CF requests of the OVP and the Department of Education for 2024.
The DBM submitted to the House the 2025 National Expenditures Program (NEP), which contains the P6.325- trillion allocation for the proposed budget.
READ: Dutertes’ anger at secret fund scrutiny, queries opens crack in ‘UniTeam’
According to Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, the CIF within the NEP went down by 16 percent if compared to the 2024 General Appropriations Act (GAA).
“The DBM got a total proposed P11.39-billion CIF for 2025, of which confidential is P5.22 billion, intelligence is P6.17 billion. But we only approved a P10.29-billion CIF. The breakdown is P4.37 billion for confidential expenses and P5.92 billion for intelligence expenses,” she said in a media briefing on Monday.
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