The Bagong Alyansa Makabayan (Bayan) urged the Commission on Audit to release a report regarding Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s expenditure of confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) from his office last year.

Bayan president Renato Reyes said this should be publicly scrutinized just like the audit of the vice-president’s CIF. It is time to eliminate all classes of confidential funds, including funds for the president.

“For transparency and accountability, the COA should release all its information regarding the CIF of the president’s office,” Reyes stated.

In 2023, Marcos spent ₱4.57 billion of CIF allocated to his office, almost half of the total ₱10.4 billion CIF budget. This is higher than the ₱4.5 billion CIF spent by Malacañang in 2022. This is several times larger than VP Sara Duterte’s CIF.

Ibon Foundation Executive Director Sonny Africa noted that this is equivalent to ₱12.5 million per day over 365 days. This is higher than the ₱11.4 million per day Duterte spent over 11 days. Reyes described it as a “mindblowing amount.”

According to the reports, the said amount was spent as follows: ₱2.2 billion for confidential expenses; ₱2.3 billion for intelligence expenses; and over ₱10 million for “extraordinary” and “miscellaneous” expenses.