Marcos trims 2024 travel expenses by 57%

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December 3, 2025 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — President Marcos trimmed down his travel expenses by 57 percent, or to a total of P328.207 million as of end of 2024 from P763.561 million in 2023, while his confidential and intelligence expenses remained at P4.56 billion, the latest audit report by the Commission on Audit (COA) showed.

Based on COA’s 2024 annual audit report on the Office of the President (OP), uploaded on the audit body’s website on Monday, the President spent a total of P311.712 million for his foreign travels in 2024, down from P753.268 million spent in 2023.

“The decrease in expenses is due to the lesser state visits of the President and implementation of austerity measures, such as limiting the members of the advance team and official delegation, among others,” the COA said.

The audit body said the OP’s expenses for foreign travels in 2024 included “transportation, daily subsistence allowance, passport and visa processing and other foreign travel-related expenses.”

The number of travels as well as the destinations were not stated in the audit report.

Meanwhile, the OP’s expenses for local trips increased to P16.495 million from P10.293 million in 2023.

The COA said this included transportation expenses, travel per diem, ferriage “and all other related expenses.”

The audit body said the increase can be attributed to the “resumption of in-person training programs, various official travels of the OP officers and employees and presidential engagements.”

“The local travels of the President were also driven by the number of natural disasters and weather-related events that occurred in 2024,” the COA added.

Meanwhile, Marcos’ confidential expenses remained at P2.25 billion in 2024. There was also no increase in his office’s intelligence expenses which remained at P2.31 billion.

On the other hand, the OP’s extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses slightly increased to P11.345 million in 2024 from P10.297 million in the previous year.

The COA said the OP’s confidential expenses included the amount paid for “surveillance activities in civilian government agencies that are intended to support the mandate or operations of the OP,” while the intelligence expenses included those related to “intelligence information gathering activities of uniformed and military personnel and intelligence practitioners that have direct impact on national security.”

Meanwhile, the COA said the OP’s extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses included the amounts paid for “expenses incidental to the performance of official functions.”

The breakdown of the OP expenses can be found under the Notes to Financial Statement section of COA’s 2024 annual audit report on OP.

Uncollected costs

Malacañang will determine what delayed the settling of agencies’ foreign trip costs advanced by the OP, as it reported that more than half of the P14.4-million receivables have already been collected.

Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro noted that there are legal processes that must be followed in remitting the expenses.

“We will identify the reasons behind the delay in the submission of the payments to the OP,” Castro said at a press briefing. “There are instances that require auditing, there is a need to report, so we will ask the agencies why it took time before they were able to remit their payments.”

According to the Palace press officer, collection letters were issued in April and May 2025.

“Of the said amount, P7,887,555.64 or 55 percent was already collected to date,” Castro said. “The OP consistently monitors the outstanding bills through monthly aging report and sending of collection demand letters.”

OVP’s expenses

Meanwhile, a separate 2024 annual audit report on the Office of the Vice President (OVP), also uploaded on the COA website yesterday, showed that Vice President Sara Duterte had no confidential expenses for 2024, from P375 million in 2023.

Duterte initially requested from Congress P500 million in confidential funds for the OVP for 2024, under the proposed national budget.

But she later withdrew her request amid the controversies and criticisms hounding her office in connection with the alleged misuse of P125 million in confidential funds in 2022.

It was discovered during the House hearings that the OVP’s P125 million in confidential funds in 2022 was spent in just 11 days.

COA’s 2024 annual audit report on the OVP showed that Duterte’s travel expenses went down to P34.425 million from P42.771 million in 2023.

The OVP’s travel expenses last year included P28.677 million for local trips, from P31.622 million in 2023. The OVP also significantly cut down its expenses for foreign trips to just P5.748 million in 2024 from P11.148 million in 2023.

The COA said the OVP’s local travel expenses included the travel expenses of the “Vice President and her immediate staff, VPSPG (Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group) and personnel in the Special Projects Division, Satellite Offices, Disaster Operations Center and other divisions in-charge of ground works, implementation and monitoring of various programs and operations and conduct of disaster relief operation in various areas nationwide.”

The COA said the OVP’s foreign travel expenses covered the “daily subsistence allowance and other travel expenses for official foreign engagements and events attended by the Vice President, VPSPG and other official members of the delegation.”

Duterte is being criticized for her frequent travel abroad especially to The Hague where her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, is currently detained for a case of crimes against humanity.

The Vice President, however, earlier said that the expenses for her personal travels abroad were shouldered by her and her family, and not taken from the funds of the OVP. — Alexis Romero, Daphne Galvez