The ₱24B ‘Leadership Fund’: How Marcos Mastered the Art of Not Knowing

A Press Officer’s Parable, a President’s Plausible Deniability, and the Senators Who Got Rich in Between.

By Louis “Barok” C. Biraogo –August 15, 2026

THE Palace has spoken, and the nation should tremble—not at the gravity of the admission, but at the audacity of the performance. Claire Castro, Press Officer and part-time metaphor butcher, wants us to believe that the President of the Republic is less a Chief Executive and more a beleaguered teacher whose students have been cheating behind his back. “If the President knew, it wouldn’t have happened,” she chirped, invoking the sacred pedagogy of the classroom. One searches in vain for a single provision in the 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines (1987 Constitution) establishing the doctrine of in loco parentis as a defense to systemic corruption.

Let us be precise about what is alleged, because the Palace certainly is. Manuel Bonoan, the former Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary now auditioning for the role of state witness, testified under oath that all 24 senators in the previous Congress shared in a ₱24-billion “leadership fund”—a euphemism so brazen it makes “Disbursement Acceleration Program” sound like a Girl Scout cookie sale. Each senator got at least ₱500 million; committee chairs got up to a billion. Senate President Migz Zubiri, Bonoan says, held the purse strings to this off-the-books pork barrel.

And what does Malacañang offer in response? Not denial of the fund’s existence. Not a document dump to prove transparency. No—the Palace offers us a parable about cheating students and a teacher who, poor thing, simply never checked the homework.

**“I Had No Personal Knowledge” — Said Every Guilty Teacher Ever**

The Precision of Plausible Deniability

Observe the architecture of Castro’s denial with the respect due a watchmaker’s masterpiece. She does not say: “The President did not know about pre-enactment legislator earmarking.” She does not say: “The President did not know about the BBM Parametric Formula that disbursed ₱1.2 trillion in House-side allocables.” She says the President had “no personal knowledge” of the specific DPWH internal label “leadership fund.”

This is not a defense; it is a tautology dressed in a barong. It is like a captain of a sinking ship claiming ignorance of the term “iceberg” while acknowledging he knew the iceberg was visible from the bridge, but the captain was reviewing the dinner menu.

Bonoan himself, in the same testimony the Palace selectively forgets, told the Sandiganbayan that he directly briefed President Marcos on the 2023 budget cuts that birthed the fund. He said Marcos was “alarmed”—alarmed!—that his socioeconomic agenda might derail. So the President knew of the problem. The solution, a discretionary slush fund funneled through senators, was apparently delivered by immaculate conception.

The Family Business

And while we are on the subject of knowledge, let us visit the House side of this architectural marvel. The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ)’s exhaustive investigation documented ₱1.2 trillion in “allocables” distributed under the BBM Parametric Formula. Who topped the list? The President’s own son, Ferdinand Alexander “Sandro” Marcos, with ₱15.8 billion. Who came second? His first cousin and then-Speaker, Martin Romualdez, with ₱14.4 billion. Ilocos Norte’s 1st District—population: 320,000—received nearly double the allocation of the most populous district in the country.

But we are to believe the President noticed nothing. He is the only man in the Philippines who can miss a trillion-peso train barreling through his own family’s backyard. The teacher, apparently, was too busy preparing lesson plans to notice his own son walking out with the school’s entire endowment.

The Constitutional Cadaver

Let us not mince words about what this “leadership fund” represents. It is the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) resurrected—not in form, but in substance. The Supreme Court in Belgica v. Ochoa struck down the pork barrel because it allowed legislators to intervene in post-enactment budget execution. The leadership fund and its sibling allocables are worse: they poison the well before the water is even drawn. They allow legislators to tinker with the National Expenditure Program (NEP)—a document that is, by constitutional design, the President’s own proposal.

Lacson, to his credit, has called this “a worse version of the outlawed pork barrel system.” He is right. It is pork barrel with better tailoring, a bespoke suit cut to fit the contours of constitutional avoidance. It is not illegal, Lacson concedes, but it is “improper.” That is like describing a cadaver as “inconvenienced.”

The Evidentiary Imperative

The Palace wants us to argue about what Marcos knew. That is the wrong question, and they know it. The right question is what the documents prove. The core principle—the one the kweba has hammered since the flood-control scandal first surfaced—is that decisive proof will never be found in rhetoric. It will be found in NEP versions. In DPWH and Department of Budget and Management (DBM) files. In routing slips bearing the signatures of men who now claim amnesia. In correspondence linking senators to project lists. In procurement records showing which contractors won, which were paid, and which projects were ghostly apparitions. In bank trails that trace kickbacks from contractor to politician to relative.

That is where this scandal will either become a genuine reckoning or another chapter in the encyclopedia of Philippine impunity.

The Political Cadaver

Bonoan is not a hero. He is a man drowning, and he has decided to drag senators down with him. His testimony is self-serving—he remains a co-accused in plunder cases, denied state-witness status by the very court now hearing his words. But even a drowning man can tell you where the water is deepest.

Zubiri, who claims he never “handled” project lists, asks us to believe that the Senate President—the man who controlled the chamber’s committee assignments, the legislative calendar, and the political futures of 23 colleagues—was somehow a passive bystander to a fund placed under his “discretion.” This is not testimony; it is performance art.

Imee Marcos denies thanking Bonoan for “assistance.” One wonders whether she thanked him for the Ilocos Norte projects that did materialize, or whether those were also apparitions. The distinction between “thank you for the help” and “thank you for the money” is a matter of grammar, not governance.

Bong Go claims his projects were never released. Robin Padilla says his were marked “for later release.” Later than what? Later than the Sandiganbayan trial? Later than the next election? Later than the Second Coming?

The Demand

Let us be clear about what must happen now.

First, the documentary record must be released. Every NEP version from 2023 to 2025. Every DPWH routing slip. Every DBM communication. Every project list submitted by Bernardo on behalf of senators. Every procurement record. Every bank trail. The Palace cannot claim transparency while hiding the very documents that would prove it.

Second, the President must stop hiding behind Arias v. Sandiganbayan. That doctrine protects good-faith reliance on subordinates. It does not protect willful blindness. A President who knew of budget cuts, knew his own son was the largest beneficiary of a parallel mechanism, and now claims ignorance of the whole architecture is not relying on subordinates. He is relying on our stupidity.

Third, the Ombudsman must investigate without fear or favor. If the evidence shows that specific leadership fund projects were ghost projects, overpriced, or kickback-laden—then plunder charges must follow. The ₱50-million threshold is a rounding error in a ₱24-billion scheme.

Fourth, Lacson’s call to abolish leadership funds and allocables must be codified. Not through a Palace press release. Through legislation. Through a statute that makes pre-enactment legislator-specific earmarking a crime, not a courtesy.

Fifth, the 2027 budget must be audited by an independent body. The Palace says it is clean. Fine. Prove it. Show us the project lists, the Regional Development Council (RDC) endorsements, the DBM evaluations. Show us that no senator, no congressman, no president’s son has his fingerprints on the document.

The Verdict

Marcos is not a teacher. He is the President. His job is not to wait until he catches cheaters. His job is to ensure that the system makes cheating impossible.

The “leadership fund” did not happen because students were clever. It happened because the teacher was either complicit or catastrophically negligent. Either way, he should not be grading papers. He should be answering questions.

The evidence is out there—in the documents, the routing slips, the bank records. It will not be found in the rhetoric of the Palace. It will be found in the paper trail that leads, inevitably, back to the truth.

May the rule of law rise on the third day.

Key Citations

A. Legal & Official Sources

The 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines. Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, 1987, http://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/constitutions/1987-constitution/.
Greco Antonious Beda B. Belgica et al. v. Honorable Executive Secretary Paquito N. Ochoa, Jr. et al. (Belgica v. Ochoa). G.R. No. 208566, Supreme Court of the Philippines, 19 Nov. 2013, lawphil.net/judjuris/juri2013/nov2013/gr_208566_2013.html.
Amado C. Arias v. The Sandiganbayan (Arias v. Sandiganbayan). G.R. No. 81563, Supreme Court of the Philippines, 19 Dec. 1989, lawphil.net/judjuris/juri1989/dec1989/gr_81563_1989.html.

B. News Reports

Cabato, Luisa. “Marcos Unaware of Alleged DPWH ‘Leadership Fund,’ Says Palace.” Inquirer.net, 13 Aug. 2026, newsinfo.inquirer.net/2283979/marcos-unaware-of-alleged-dpwh-leadership-fund-says-palace.
“Bonoan: ‘All senators’ got share of ‘leadership fund’.” Inquirer.net, 12 Aug. 2026, newsinfo.inquirer.net/2283475/bonoan-all-senators-got-share-of-leadership-fund.
“Marcos unaware of alleged DPWH ‘leadership fund,’ says Palace.” Inquirer.net, 14 Aug. 2026, newsinfo.inquirer.net/2283979/marcos-unaware-of-alleged-dpwh-leadership-fund-says-palace.
“‘Allocables’ are the new pork and Sandro Marcos and Martin Romualdez are the pork barrel kings.” Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, 29 Nov. 2025, pcij.org/2025/11/29/allocables-are-the-new-pork/.
“Lacson calls for ban on ‘leadership fund’.” The Manila Times, 14 Aug. 2026, http://www.manilatimes.net/2026/08/14/news/lacson-calls-for-ban-on-leadership-fund/2405126.
“Bonoan: Senate ‘leadership fund’ formed after Marcos alarmed over insertions.” GMA News Online, 13 Aug. 2026, http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/998463/bonoan-senate-leadership-fund-formed-after-marcos-alarmed-over-insertions/story/.