Pols in COA report defend ‘pork’ use

MANILA, Philippines - Compostela Valley Vice Gov. Manuel “Way Kurat” Zamora insisted yesterday that further investigation should be conducted in the wake of a Commission on Audit (COA) report accusing him of receiving the biggest amount in pork barrel funds from 2007 to 2009 when he was the representative of the province’s first district.s

The COA report stated that Zamora exceeded the normal Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) for a congressman and received P3.2 billion for the three-year period.

However, Zamora denied the report, saying the figures could have been erroneously entered in the records that ballooned his supposed PDAF allocation to P3.2 billion.

“I welcome any probe and I really want that the matter be investigated deeper. I want that a probe be conducted so that the truth will come out. I am not hiding anything. My conscience is clear and I have not done any wrongdoing,” Zamora told The STAR.

He said a deeper probe would be the only way to clear matters with regard to the COA report.

He stressed that he only received the stipulated P70-million annual PDAF allocation for each congressman for the said three years.

Zamora said he would voluntarily go to jail if they could prove that he received P3 billion in pork barrel funds from 2007 to 2009.

He explained that each congressman gets P40 million in so-called hard fund and P30 million in soft fund.

The hard fund is used for the construction of , roads and irrigation projects, he said.

He said the auditors were probably tired and even included foreign assisted projects, funds from the Office of the President and the Department of Agriculture.

He challenged COA auditors to correctly identify the districts that received the P3 billion.

Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr. yesterday confirmed findings by the COA that at least 74 congressmen received more than P70 million in pork barrel funds during the Arroyo administration.

“Yes, I confirm that some got more than others, that they significantly exceeded their allocations,” Andaya, budget secretary of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, said COA Chairperson Grace Pulido-Tan revealed her agency’s audit findings.

Tan said the excess amount allocated to the 74 lawmakers “was not P1 million or P5 million hundreds of millions.”

In fact, she said one congressman received about P3 billion.

Andaya said in the past, there was no rule setting a maximum amount that a senator or congressman can receive in pork barrel funds.

“It all depended on the leadership of the Senate and the House and Malacañang. What we had was a minimum amount,” he said.

He said it is only under President Aquino that the maximum PDAF allocations of P200 million per senator and P70 million per House member is being followed.

By “minimum amount,” the former budget chief was referring to the publicly known allocation of P200 million a year per senator and P70 million per congressman.

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said yesterday that the disbursements of PDAF in the 15th Congress or from 2010 to 2013 were much less prone to corruption.

He said he has asked his staff to analyze the use of the PDAF by members of the House of Representatives in the 15th Congress and found there was less funding for projects “vulnerable” to corruption.

Belmonte said most of the transactions questioned by the COA are in the livelihood projects coursed through the Department of Agriculture and other agencies.

The DBM since 2010 got more strict with the menu of projects that can be funded by congressional allocations and the government agencies that can accept PDAF, “that’s why the leakages have been reduced,” he said.

He said based on the initial calculations, 20 percent of the allocations for soft projects went to livelihood projects during the second half of 2010.

In 2011, the percentage went down to 11 percent; 13 percent in 2012, and nine percent in the early part of 2013.

But this did not mean that the percentages equated to leakages.

When asked about reports that some lawmakers in the 14th Congress got allocations way above their PDAF, he said the Arroyo administration “must have had good reason to give them more.”

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) doubts if any PDAF issued to their accredited NGOs or what they call civil society organizations (CSOs) could be used for fake projects.

Roy Calfoforo, in charge of DSWD CSOs, said that they doubt if any bogus group can get accreditation with their Standards Bureau.

“We really have rigid requirements and a tedious accreditation process,” Calfoforo said.

He said that CSOs that apply for DSWD accreditation are subjected to “social investigation” during which communities they claim to work with are questioned on their and projects.

The DSWD Standards Bureau, he said, also checks if the applying CSO has existing offices, their officers are also interviewed on their past community involvements.

Senator urges probe

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III has called on his colleagues in the Senate to reconsider their decision against a parallel probe into the pork barrel fund scam and heed the clamor of the public for answers.

In a statement, Pimentel said that overwhelming clamor of the people to get to the bottom of the issue, as well as the sentiments of Cardinal Tagle about the pork barrel scam being an intricate web of corruption, should merit reconsideration by the Senate of its decision to hold off an inquiry.

Pimentel expressed concern that the issue has caused great damage to the reputation of Congress and by conducting a public inquiry, the Senate could dispel suspicions that it is protecting its own.

Pimentel said that there is need to uncover the truth about the issue and have the guilty parties face prosecution.

He said that the Senate inquiry would also serve as an opportunity for the innocent legislators to have their names cleared.

Sen. Francis Escudero previously filed a resolution calling for an inquiry into the issue by the Senate Blue Ribbon committee.

Sen. Jinggoy Estrada told reporters that as a senator, he merely endorses requests to the concerned department, which in turn provides the allocation to selected NGOs.

Estrada admitted it was not within his means to verify the authenticity of the NGOs. 

He said he also wanted to know where his PDAF allocations really went, especially since a majority went to farmer-beneficiaries.

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago debunked claims by a colleague that they have no way to check the NGO beneficiaries of their PDAF.

“In the first place why should you give funds to an NGO which you are not fully acquainted with? That’s very dangerous,” Santiago said.

She added that “the better part of prudence dictates that when you are faced with a request, prioritize the agency or the local agency.”

Santiago cautioned the Aquino administration about the repercussions of putting the issue of the pork barrel fund scam under wraps.

She added that failure of her Senate colleagues to take the issue head on possibly by calling for an inquiry would have a negative impact on the public perception on senators. 

Santiago said the Filipino people would judge the present administration on how it will deal with the pork barrel scam.

Santiago recommended that the senators named in the pork barrel scam should go on leave.

According to Senate President Franklin Drilon, the PDAF allocations pass through the chairman of the Senate committee on finance, which also endorses the “menu of projects” to the Office of the Senate President.

“What we do, when the request passes through the Office of the Senate President, is to verify whether or not the request is in accordance with the menu specified in the General Appropriations Act,” Drilon explained.

Drilon said it is up to the government to audit the use of PDAF.  With Jess Diaz, Rainier Allan Ronda, Paolo Romero, Marvin Sy, Janvic Mateo, Christina Mendez