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CAGAYAN DE ORO, Philippines – Impeached Vice President Sara Duterte’s spending of hundreds of millions of pesos in confidential and intelligence funds has drawn increased public attention to her ongoing Senate impeachment trial. But beyond the accounting of those funds lies a bigger question: Why does the political system give elected officials access to large pools of public money that, by design, remain beyond ordinary public scrutiny?
Duterte’s spending during her first two years as vice president, when she also served as education secretary, is part of the evidence in the impeachment trial proceedings. State auditors Roderick Wamil and Xylene Mae del Campo testified about confidential and intelligence funds — over P612 million — spent by the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education when she headed it.
Evidence presented showed spending on parties, tree-planting activities and other events, as well as surveillance and profiling of people, including participants at gatherings attended by Duterte.
Auditors found recipients for whom there was no apparent proof that money had actually been received beyond acknowledgment receipts bearing names that appeared spurious or, in many cases, sounded almost comical.
From Davao to Manila
There is more to this than meets the eye. Confidential funds have become a longstanding feature of governance in the Philippines, with billions of pesos allocated each year even to governors and mayors. The practice has persisted for years, with little questioning of whether such funds are really necessary.
The weight of the controversy hounding Duterte made her the most prominent practitioner and the poster girl of intelligence and confidential fund spending.
Before becoming vice president in 2022, she spent six years as mayor of Davao City, where confidential funds had already become a part of the local government’s annual budget.
During her tenure, while her father Rodrigo was president, Davao’s annual confidential expenditures rose from P144 million in 2016 to P293 million in 2017 and P420 million in 2018.
From 2016 to 2022, Davao City set aside over P2.6 billion for confidential expenses, according to Commission on Audit (COA) figures, exceeding the confidential-fund spending of wealthier cities such as Quezon City, Makati, Manila, and Cebu.
The practice did not end when Sara Duterte left Davao city hall; it followed her to Manila.
Sara Duterte is not alone
Yet such spending is hardly unique to her. It is part of a much older and more widespread practice that has taken root across the country, quietly expanding for decades under the gaze of a public that has, perhaps through sheer repetition, grown increasingly inured to the idea of public money being spent with little explanation.
George Goking, a former Cagayan de Oro councilor, called for the outright removal of provisions on intelligence and confidential funds from the 1991 Local Government Code, calling them “redundant and unnecessary.”
During his nine years as a city councilor, Goking said he had never seen evidence that local intelligence and confidential funds served their intended purpose.
He said such funds should be limited to the president, police, military and national government agencies tasked with gathering intelligence for national security.
“They should not be given to just about any politician who knows nothing about intelligence work,” Goking said.
The country is divided into 18 administrative regions, encompassing 82 provinces, 33 highly urbanized cities, 116 other smaller cities and 1,493 municipalities — and the law permits their local governments to set aside intelligence and confidential funds, leaving the governors and mayors with broad discretion over how the money is spent.
Take Northern Mindanao, for instance, which offers a glimpse of how deeply confidential and intelligence funds have become embedded in local governments. It shows how widespread the practice has become.
Collectively, its cities and provinces allocated over P1.1 billion in such funds in 2023 and 2024, based on COA data. Their budgets rose from P527.7 million in 2023 to P646.3 million in 2024. The figures do not include the region’s 84 municipalities, each with mayors allowed by law to have such discretionary funds.
How much did Region X cities spend?
Consider Cagayan de Oro City, the biggest confidential and intelligence fund spender in Region X. Under Mayor Rolando “Klarex” Uy, the city’s confidential-fund allocation increased from P200 million in 2023 to P250 million in 2024. Whatever matters were considered sufficiently secret to require such a fund, they apparently became 25% more expensive in one year.
Iligan City, under Mayor Frederick Siao, increased its allocation from P40.5 million to P54 million during the same period.
Between Cagayan de Oro and Iligan is the relatively new city of El Salvador, a component of Misamis Oriental, which had P10 million of such funds in 2023 and another P14 million in 2024 under Mayor Edgar Lignes.
Toward the east, near the Caraga region, another Misamis Oriental component city, Gingoog, had P21 million in 2024 under Mayor Erick Cañosa, with no 2023 allocation shown in the latest COA report.
Malaybalay, the capital of Bukidnon, moved in the opposite direction, cutting its allocation under Mayor Jay Warren Pabillaran from P2.203 million in 2023 to P900,000 in 2024.
But another Bukidnon city, Valencia, maintained a P22-million confidential-fund allocation under then-mayor Azucena Huervas in both years, while its intelligence fund rose from P6.584 million to P11.9 million.
Interestingly, Valencia’s confidential fund allocation was roughly 1,592% larger than that of Bukidnon province under Huervas, who ran for governor in 2025 but failed to unseat Governor Rogelio Neil Roque.
A COA report also showed that the Valencia city government has another P22 million in unliquidated confidential-fund cash advances which it has yet to properly account for even after 10 years.
In Misamis Occidental, Oroquieta City nearly doubled its allocation under Mayor Lemuel Meyrick Acosta, from P10.484 million to P20.329 million.
Ozamiz City, under former mayor Indy Oaminal, now a party-list group representative, increased its allocation from P20 million to P22.5 million, while Tangub, under Mayor Ben Canama, increased its allocation from P11.645 million to P15.997 million.
How much did Region X provinces spend?
Among the provinces, Misamis Oriental was Northern Mindanao’s biggest spender, increasing its allocation under then-governor Peter Unabia from P100 million in 2023 to P110 million in 2024. Unabia lost in his bid for reelection in 2025.
Misamis Occidental, under Governor Henry Oaminal, maintained its P78-million allocation, while Lanao del Norte reduced its allocation from P15 million in 2023 to P11.25 million in 2024 during the governorship of Imelda Dimaporo, now a congresswoman.
The province of Camiguin, under Governor Xavier Jesus Romualdo, allocated P6 million each for confidential and intelligence funds in 2024, up from P5 million each in 2023. That means P22 million in two years for confidential fund spending in a small, relatively peaceful island province of just five towns — a sum difficult to square with either its size or its tranquility.
Bukidnon’s allocation under Governor Roque increased from P1.253 million to P1.395 million. It is, by far, the lowest among the provinces and cities in Region X.
Yet those relatively modest figures stand in contrast to Roque’s predecessor, Jose Maria Zubiri, who repeatedly said during his tenure as governor that he kept no confidential or intelligence funds because he despised the practice.
The figures do not establish that every local chief executive who receives confidential funds has acted improperly, nor that every confidential expenditure is fraudulent. They do, however, point to a broader institutional question about why 1,724 politicians — governors and mayors — should be entrusted with funds whose spending is almost impervious to public scrutiny.
Call for reforms
Lawyer and former Cagayan de Oro vice mayor Antonio Soriano said reforms could be made by amending the Local Government Code, which allows local executives to have such discretionary funds with the approval of local legislatures.
Such funds, he said, could prove useful at times when police and military intelligence operatives run short of money.
“They normally turn to local executives to ask for help whenever they are experiencing a fund shortage,” he said.
Soriano said the funds are subject to auditing rules, but the problem is that “COA has become very liberal and accommodating,” while some auditors have become too “friendly” with politicians.
These conditions, he said, have made the misuse of local intelligence and confidential funds less risky through the years.
“We need stricter audit rules when it comes to these funds, and there is a need to set limits,” Soriano told Rappler.
He added that the national government should set a ceiling on the amounts local governments can spend on confidential and intelligence-gathering activities based on the size of their territory, population, income and resources.
Soriano also called for the government to accredit citizens’ watchdogs, which could tap retired state auditors and former members of the Armed Forces and National Police who understand how intelligence operations work. Accreditation, he said, would give the watchdogs teeth. – Rappler.com
