Jonvic Remulla bares P500-million ‘insertion’ for PNP intelligence funds

The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) returned a P500-million “insertion” in the intelligence funds of the Philippine National Police (PNP) for fiscal year 2025, secretary Jonvic Remulla said Thursday. 

Remulla made the disclosure during the Senate Committee on Finance’s deliberations on the proposed P287.48 billion budget of the DILG and its attached agencies for next year. 

The DILG chief did not identify the person who allegedly made the multi-million budget insertions for PNP, but said that it was someone “who requested 3,000 containers of fish.” 

To recall, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. previously said that resigned Ako Bicol Party-list Representative Zaldy Co allegedly forced the Department of Agriculture (DA) to issue permits to import fish worth 3,000 containers to his three companies. 

“The P500 million that…was an insertion, which we turned over to the Office of the President. We didn’t use that P500 million,” Remulla told Senator Sherwin Gatchalian. 

“We did not ask for it, so I returned it,” he added. 

Gatchalian, chairman of the Senate finance committee, was questioning why the intelligence funds of PNP decreased from P1.3 billion in 2025 to P800 million in 2026. 

Remulla explained that the PNP, an attached agency of the DILG, only followed what was only requested under the National Expenditure Program (NEP), rather than the General Appropriations Act (GAA). –NB, GMA Integrated News