The Senate approved the proposed P10.645 billion budget request for the Office of the President's 2024 funds on Thursday, November 9, which also retained the P2.3 billion intelligence fund.

During the second day of the Senate’s budget debates, Senate Minority Leader Koko Pimentel asked about the OP’s over P4 billion request for confidential and intelligence funds.

According to the senator, granting the requested confidential funds has no issue, but he opposed giving them to the intelligence funds, arguing that a civilian office that received the intelligence was gathered and organized by security agencies.

Pimentel said that he doesn’t think that the office of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is composed of intelligence practitioners, as the President himself and the office are already consumers of intelligence.

On the other hand, budget sponsor and Senate Committee on Finance chairperson Senator Sonny Angara said that the requested intelligence fund has had the same amount as the president’s office since 2020.

However, Pimentel argued that the OP is given Intel funds, which violates the concept of checks and balances and control.

With that, Angara assured that the OP has no exemption from submitting documents required by the Commission on Audit.