'Military converted P179-B fund under GMA'

MANILA, Philippines - The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) might have “converted” into slush funds a total of P179.4 billion during the Arroyo administration, Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Neri Colmenares said yesterday.

Colmenares tried to link former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, now a congresswoman representing Pampanga’s second district, to these supposed conversions.

“Where did all this money go, and in all those years, did GMA know nothing about it?” he asked.

Citing figures taken from the annual budgets between 2002 and 2010, Colmenares said the P179.4 billion represents excess appropriations for salaries given by Congress to the AFP-Department of National Defense (DND).

He said the legislature appropriated a total of P343.4 billion for “personal services” or PS (the budget language for salaries), while total compensation requests by the DND-AFP amounted to slightly over P164 billion.

Colmenares said he was shocked by the huge amount of “discrepancy” or the excess appropriations for salaries when he compared the amounts actually budgeted and the fund requests submitted by the military-defense establishment, together with their staffing positions.

He said that based on the testimonies in the Senate of retired Lt. Col. George Rabusa, former AFP budget officer, PS appropriations were the favorite allocations converted into slush funds, which Rabusa claimed were shared by senior officers led by the chief of staff.

Based on Colmenares’ research, in 2010, Congress appropriated P41.3 billion in PS for AFP-DND, which asked for only P19.4 billion for 137,453 positions.

In 2009, P41.2 billion was budgeted against a P19.2-billion request for 135,580 positions. In 2008, the budget for PS was P36 billion, but the actual AFP-DND request was only P17.3 billion for positions numbering 135,669.

Some P35.8 billion was budgeted for salaries in 2007 versus a request for P17.4 billion for 143,993 positions. The same amount was budgeted in 2006, against a request for P18.1 billion for 142,203 positions.

In 2005, P35.8 billion was included in the national budget for AFP-DND salaries. The request amounted only to P18.2 billion for 142,160 positions.

In 2004, P35 billion was budgeted for salaries, against P19.4 billion the AFP-DND requested for 140,453 positions. In 2003, the budget for PS was P32.3 billion, while the request amounted to P19.3 billion for 134,768 positions.

And in 2002, P50.4 billion was budgeted for PS versus a P24.2-billion request for 134,449 positions.

Asked why Congress appropriated PS funds that were twice – in some cases more than twice – the amounts requested by the AFP-DND, Colmenares said the concerned officials “justified the huge increases along the way through adjustments in pension, gratuities and other retirement benefits.”

He said his figures on the amounts of PS requested and staffing positions were taken from AFP-DND documents submitted during budget hearings and from the annual budgets.

He said the staffing positions were apparently what Rabusa referred to as “troop ceilings.”

“According to Mr. Rabusa, these troop ceilings were bloated by at least 20 percent. This means that conversions were much, much more than P179 billion,” he stressed.

Based on the former AFP budget officer’s Senate testimonies, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad has frozen 20 percent, or more than P9 billion, of the P44-billion PS appropriation of the defense-military establishment for this year.

Like Colmenares, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV has tried to link Mrs. Arroyo to military corruption during her nine-year presidency.

However, Mrs. Arroyo’s congressman-son Juan Miguel, Ang Galing Pinoy party-list representative, dared Trillanes to show proof or shut up.

Another party-list representative, Kaka Bag-ao of Akbayan, said Mrs. Arroyo could not escape responsibility for corruption in the AFP during her watch.

“GMA’s fingerprints are all over these controversies. She has to speak up and stop hiding behind the death of a loyal chief of staff,” she said, referring to the late retired Gen. Angelo Reyes, who killed himself last Tuesday.

AFP wants Robles to talk

Meanwhile, the military yesterday urged retired Commodore Rex Robles to appear before investigating bodies to reveal what he knows about the alleged corruption within its ranks.

AFP spokesman Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta Jr. said they want to be informed about the supposed irregularities since they are the affected party.

“It’s the armed forces who would like to find out the details of this. Time and again, we are the aggrieved party, more than anyone else, it’s the armed forces who would like to know the circumstances of these malpractices,” he said.

Mabanta said Robles’ revelation can become a basis for investigating bodies to come up with reforms or laws that can improve their system.

In a radio interview, Robles said he has been waiting for the Senate to invite him to their inquiries.

“I’ve been telling that I should be called. They have yet to invite me,” he told radio station dzRH.

Robles was a member of the Feliciano Commission that investigated the 2003 Oakwood mutiny, where rebel soldiers decried the supposed corruption within the AFP.

Robles told a news briefing last Saturday that a “high-profile individual” stole P350 million from military funds. The former Navy officer, however, declined to name the person who received the hefty sum.

He said conversion of funds happened before and that huge sums were missing before the 2004 presidential elections.

“The whole government was converting. It just happened that in the military, huge amounts were involved. There was a time it was very much abused, especially during the period prior to the election of President Arroyo in 2004,” he said.

Robles said that when he was still part of the Feliciano Commission, he discovered that an official stole around P300 million to P400 million from AFP funds.

“I did not name the official. Malacañang obtained the copy (of the report) from me and hid it,” he said. “I wondered why Malacañang did that. I was waiting for them to call me to ask how I did the report and who was the person involved. But it seems that they are not interested (to know these).”

Robles said ranking officials and state auditors, by their very character, play key roles in the commission of corrupt practices.

He said lawmakers should study the recommendations of the Feliciano Commission so they would have a better grasp of the issues.

The commission recommended, among others, the giving of a three-year term for AFP chief and the designation of civilians with no military background as defense secretary.

“The inspector-general should have a direct line to the president. He should have a four-star rank so he cannot be touched by the chief of staff,” Robles said.

DepEd: What conversion?

Because of the ruckus created by Rabusa’s testimonies at the Senate, the Department of Education (DepEd) said the agency has no opportunity for “fund conversion” like what was happening at the AFP.

The DepEd has repeatedly claimed that it is experiencing shortage of teachers.

Alberto Muyot, DepEd spokesman and Undersecretary for Legal and Legislative Affairs, said the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has amended the release of the PS budget by transferring funds to the department based on the actual number of personnel, unlike in the past when the budget given was based on the number of plantilla positions.

Muyot added that PS funds released by DBM to DepEd are covered by the monthly Notice of Cash Allocation (NCA), which automatically returns to the budget department if not used within a period of one month.

Muyot explained that if there are still excess or unused PS funds, it can only be used for items such as teachers’ pay adjustments and payment of yearend bonuses of personnel, all subject to accounting rules.

“The P10,000 Christmas bonus given to teachers annually are drawn from this because it is not part of the regular allocation from the General Appropriations Act,” he said.

Muyot said excess PS funds cannot be converted or used as maintenance and other operating expenses or capital outlay funds in compliance with Commission on Audit rules.

DepEd maintained that the agency automatically adds the number of teachers it is authorized to hire in a year without subtracting those who retired, were separated from, or died while in service during the same period.

“If a teacher is separated from service, we need to immediately replace them otherwise no one will teach and we will never be able to address teacher shortage. Remember that we have at least a million new entrants to the public school system each school year thus the continuing need for teacher positions,” Muyot said. – Allan Ronda, Alexis Romero Rainier