Kiko reveals P300 M of P1-B Quedancor loan went to its officials

MANILA, Philippines - Some P300 million of the P1-billion loan secured by the Quedan and Rural Credit Guarantee Corp. (Quedancor) from the Agricultural Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (ACEF) ended up as retirement benefits of its officials, Senate committee on agriculture chairman Francis Pangilinan said yesterday.

“Our sources relayed to us that P300 million of the P1-billion loan was diverted to fund the retirement benefits of Quedancor officials. The rest was used for the swine program where only three feed suppliers with no track record in the industry were accredited,” Pangilinan said.

Pangilinan has filed a resolution calling for an investigation into the alleged irregularities in the utilization of ACEF funds.

Enacted into law in 1996, ACEF serves as a special purpose fund raised from duties on imported agricultural products. The creation of the fund is contained in Republic Act 8178 or Agricultural Tariffication Act.

The program was supposed to fold up in 2007, but in 2008, Congress extended its implementation until 2015.

Sen. Franklin Drilon recently revealed that ghost borrowers took out an estimated P2.5 billion from the ACEF based on the findings of the Commission on Audit (COA).

According to the COA report, the Department of Agriculture (DA) extended loans to hundreds of ghost companies between 2000 and 2009, mostly during the term of former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Drilon said business ventures were opened just to secure funds from the ACEF and that there appeared to be collusion between previous officials of the DA and recipients of the funds.

“The government is clearly prejudiced in this case because the amount could not be collected anymore since these are clearly ghost borrowers,” Drilon said.

Of the 264 confirmation letters sent by COA to the supposed borrowers, 140 with balances totaling P2.1 billion did not reply and 27 with balances of P370 million returned the letters citing various reasons.

Some borrowers – with loans totaling more than P66 billion – said they had to close shop due to typhoon losses and stop paying.

COA also noted that P1 million in loans cannot be collected anymore because of death, insufficient address or unknown identity of the borrowers.

“We need to get to the bottom of this and send out the message that government will not tolerate these excesses. It is under the Aquino administration that we have this window of opportunity to end pervasive corruption in the bureaucracy,” Pangilinan said.