'Palace ill-advised on WB'

MANILA, Philippines - Supreme Court (SC) spokesman Midas Marquez said yesterday Malacañang and other critics were ill-advised over the alleged misuse of the $21.9-million loan released by the World Bank (WB) for the government’s judicial reform support project.

In a statement, Marquez said the contents of the World Bank aide memoire “are preliminary in nature and are yet to be finalized” by the WB International Bank of Reconstruction and Development and the SC Project Management Office (PMO).

Marquez, also the SC administrator, cited a letter of Matthew Stephens, acting country director of the World Bank, to the SC last Dec. 28, which stated that “given the deliberative

nature of the information, some of which is still to be confirmed, the attached Aide Memoire is classified as Official Use Only for the purpose of project monitoring and management, and will not be disclosed to the public.”

Therefore, paragraph 34 of the aide memoire (which contains the list of ineligible expenditures in Table 5 in Annex 4) could not be used as basis for the investigation reportedly being planned by the House and the Senate, he said.

Marquez clarified that the questioned amount from the loan was only $200,000 and not the entire $21.9-million loan.

“The remainder of the supposed ‘ineligibles’ has already been validly charged to the proper funding source even before the WB monitoring team arrived and should not have been included at all in the said aide memoire,” he said.

Based on the initial assessment, out of the $199,900 supposed “ineligibles,” $147,159 was spent to purchase ICT equipment for the courts, while $22,338 was used to print case digests distributed to the judges.

These, Marquez said, were intended for improving case adjudication and access to justice, enhancing institutional integrity, strengthening institutional capacity and support for the reform of the judicial system and for the PMO.

The SC official also addressed the issue in the aide memoire questioning his multiple roles in the SC that enabled him to approve alleged misuse of the funds without checks and balances.

“I think my multiple positions have nothing to do with the checks and balances. I have (even) occupied more positions during the time of Chief Justice Reynato Puno (so) I don’t see any reason why it should be questioned at this time,” he said.

Marquez earlier appealed to Palace officials to be more careful in issuing statements on issues they are not familiar with.

Meanwhile, he gave assurance that the SC will “continue to be transparent and vigilant in its financial affairs.”

Marquez noted that the United Nations Development Program recently commended the SC for its financial audit report while the Commission on Audit cleared the SC (including Chief Justice Renato Corona) of any fund irregularities in 2010.