Senator-judges examine witness testimony on the confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education’s (DepEd) as the Senate impeachment court convened for Day 15 of the trial of Vice President Sara Duterte on Wednesday, August 12, 2026. Joseph Vidal, Senate Social Media Unit
MANILA — A lawmaker called for realignment of the allocation for confidential expenses in the proposed 2027 national budget to services that many Filipinos “direly need”.
During the House plenary deliberations on the proposed 2027 budget, Kabataan Party List Representative and House prosecution spokesperson Renee Co raised concerns over the possibility that it can be a “systemic weapon against the people’s purse”, adding that the ongoing impeachment proceedings expose how the post-audit of confidential fund disbursements can take a while.
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House Committee on Appropriations Chairperson Rep. Mikaela Suansing gave assurances that the agencies given continuing allocation for confidential or intelligence expenses under the 2027 national budget are those that “really have mandates relating to national security and the like”.
These include the Office of the President, Department of National Defense, Philippine National Police, National Bureau of Investigation, Department of the Interior and Local Government- Office of the Secretary, Department of Finance, Bureau of Customs, Department of Justice Office of the Secretary, Department of Transportation, and Anti-Red Tape Authority.
“There are no preventive mechanisms in place in the existing rules… where questionable plans for spending can be halted, even though the confidential expenses plan or annex A is already attached, when the request for allocation of confidential expenses is submitted to DBM?” Co asked.
“The only thing that is submitted to them when the releases are requested is something like a physical and financial plan, and even the contents are very vague to the point that they are unable to detect at that stage whether there may be issues down the road. Admittedly, because of the nature of the expenses themselves, naka-sealed envelope pa nga po ‘yun, so they are not able to validate it at that point. On the part of the DBM, during the SARO release, unfortunately, walang mechanism in place at the moment for them to be able to check, so it’s really at the part of COA, once they do the audit,” Suansing replied.
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“Essentially we hope that COA does a good job. But at the end of the day, this means that there can be years wherein these disbursements happen, at kung ma-spot-an ng COA ‘yung anomalous spending, dito lang magsisimula ang imbestigasyon, at dito magkakaroon ng chance na matingnan… at mabawi. Confidential funds are not in line with our constitutional principles of accountability, transparency, of full public disclosure of all state transactions involving public interest. We also believe that confidential funds and expenses are a relic of opaque governance that has no place after the misspending of them has been exposed.
"The ongoing impeachment proceedings expose how billions in confidential appropriations were disbursed with zero real time accountability, shielded by sealed envelopes and post audits that take years to surface… We heard that there are moves to amend the rules, so while we’re waiting for that, we’re of the stance that there should be no confidential expenses in this budget. And it should be allocated to different services that our people direly need more,” Co said.
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