Senate awaits COA report on DAR disbursements of P35-B Marcos funds

The Senate is awaiting the Commission on Audit’s (COA) full disclosure of reports on disbursements made by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) using some P35 billion in recovered Marcos assets.

Senate President Franklin Drilon expressed confidence that the COA would be able to uncover the "loopholes" used in the use of some P22 billion of Marcos funds, around P100 million of which was used to fuel the controversial fertilizer fund of the Department of Agriculture (DA).

"Part of the Marcos funds were used for the anomalous fertilizer funds. P100 million at least was used for the fertilizer funds where there was gross overpricing," Drilon said.

"These paper trails and questions where we have no satisfactory answers will now be looked into by the Commission on Audit," he said.

Drilon said members of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC), which has been overseeing the handling of proceeds from the Marcos wealth, and its executive committee may have erred when they allocated about P22 billion of the P35 billion recovered Marcos money to four government agencies.

Drilon named these agencies as the National Irrigation Authority, the Department of Public Works and Highways, DA and DAR.

"We certainly would not accept as totally valid the position of the DAR that the resolution of the PARC executive committee is sufficient. It is our view that the absence of a resolution from the PARC and in the absence of ratification by the PARC of the PARC executive committee actions, such disbursements are illegal," Drilon said.

Under the law, Drilon noted that only the PARC can disburse the recovered ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses, not the PARC executive committee.

President Arroyo is chairman of the PARC with Cabinet secretaries as members. The PARC executive council is chaired by the DAR secretary with undersecretaries as members.

As a result of the senators’ dissatisfaction with the DAR’s explanation on the Marcos fund disbursements, the agency once again failed to have its budget for this year approved.

During the resumption of budget deliberations yesterday, DAR officials were not able to explain to the Senate committee as a whole how they spent their budgets for 2004 and 2005, particularly the disbursement of the P35 billion Marcos funds.

"From the way the DAR officials answered our questions, it is quite clear that they were very loose in the use of this Marcos funds. I am not happy with the way it was accounted for," Drilon said.

Sen. Joker Arroyo, chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, said the committee will wait for DAR officials to produce the PARC resolution, which supposedly gives authority to the President as chairman of the PARC, to disburse the funds.

"The President cannot just release it. It should be a resolution of the PARC… otherwise, the President can just disburse anything," Sen. Arroyo said.