Another lawmaker indicted for PDAF misuse

MANILA, Philippines - Former lawmaker Teodulo Coquilla will be charged before the Sandiganbayan with two counts of malversation and two counts of graft after the Office of the Ombudsman found probable cause that he had misused his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allocations in 2007.

Others to be charged with Coquilla are National Agribusiness Corp. officials Alan Javellana, Cristina Encarnita-Munsod, Ma. Julie Villaralvo-Johnson and Romulo Relevo, and non-government organization GABAYMASA officials  Margie Luz and Ma. Cristina Vizcarra.

In October 2007, Coquilla received P5 million as part of his PDAF for the acquisition of instructional materials and seedlings, investigation showed.  

Coquilla entered into a memorandum of agreement to implement the project, and NABCOR was identified as implementing agency and GABAYMASA as its NGO project partner.  

The project called for the procurement of 32,887 calamundin, rambutan, chico and mango seedlings, and 10,470 instructional materials intended for his constituents in the municipalities of Dolores, Maslog, Jipapad, Lawaan and Guiuan.

Coquilla signed the certificate of acceptance and acknowledgment receipt for the project, documents showed.

Gross violations of procurement rules were uncovered as the suppliers were unregistered business entities with nonexistent addresses, investigators said.

It was also found out that the supplier for the instructional materials was holding office in a residential area and selling car batteries and wheel interiors.

Through the Commission on Audit, it was discovered that no fruit seedlings or instructional materials  were distributed to beneficiaries and that the suppliers did not possess the required accreditation to transact, as it had no track record in project implementation.

Dismissing Coquilla’s defense that his signatures were forged, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales ruled that his denial, no matter how vehement, is insufficient to prove forgery.

“As the legislator responsible for the control and/or disposition of funds drawn from his PDAF allocations, Coquilla is an accountable officer,” she said.

“To be able to repeatedly divert substantial funds from the PDAF, access thereto must be made available, and this was made possible by Coquilla who chose GABAYMASA to implement his PDAF-related undertakings.

“There is cohesion and interconnection in the respondents’ intent and purpose, and that the role played by each of them was so indispensable to the success of their scheme, that without any of them, the same would have failed.”