Senate: TESDA granted P1.6-billion scholarships to ghost beneficiaries

MANILA, Philippines - About P1.6 billion out of P2.4 billion worth of scholarships supposedly granted by the Technical Education and Skills Authority during the previous administration were granted to ghost beneficiaries, TESDA chief Joel Villanueva told senators during a budget hearing last week.

During a hearing presided by Senate finance committee chairman Sen. Francis Drilon, Villanueva said they discovered the anomaly after his team conducted an audit of the agency’s scholarship program.

He said only P800 million of the scholarships had actual beneficiaries, and the rest apparently were given to “fake scholars, fake schools.”

Villanueva reported that 70 percent of the technical vocational institutions do not have supporting documents in the agency or cannot be located, and yet some are actually asking payments or claims from the agency.

With the discovery, Drilon supported the move of the current TESDA officials not to process payments of these claims, saving the government P1.6 billion.

Villanueva said the unverified “claimants” have even filed charges against TESDA before local courts and the agency has asked the help of the Department of Justice.

The Office of the Ombudsman, just couple of weeks ago, likewise asked that they be furnished copies of the information.

Several months ago, Villanueva revealed that TESDA had been barraged with demand letters from various technical-vocational schools claiming to have provided trainings to TESDA scholars and seeking compensation under the “Pangulong Gloria Scholarship” program of the previous administration.

He was told that during the incumbency of TESDA chief Augusto Syjuco, who is now an Iloilo congressman, the agency issued billions worth of vouchers that were used as scholarship certificates to some training centers.

But two years later, the vouchers remain unpaid, simply because the agency had no appropriation allotted for the vouchers.