Lawmaker dares Soriano: Present ‘report card’

How has Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) chief Wilhelm Soriano fared as chief custodian of the trust funds of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs)?

This Bulacan Rep. Willie Villarama wants to know as he called on Soriano to come out with his own "report card" on his performance as OWWA chief.

Soriano, according to Villarama, has to come clean and prove his "fidelity to his fiduciary obligations" to OFWs whose money is entrusted to his care.

"Instead of asking OWWA employees to regularly rally at the Department of Labor and Employment, a practice which impairs service to OFWs, I am asking Soriano to answer the following questions," Villarama said.

The solon asked Soriano whether he invested OWWA money without clearance and approval from the OWWA Board and if he did, whether these investments have been returned to the trust fund of OFWs.

He also quizzed Soriano on whether the utilization of OWWA funds in the past five years "has consistently exceeded (the agency’s) collections for the previous year."

"Is it true that more than half of your collections are used for salaries and benefits of OWWA personnel and only 22 percent are used for benefits? Is it true that OWWA workers enjoy an additional P100,000 per person per year which has been determined to have no legal basis?" Villarama further asked.

The solon added: "Is it true that you have a discretionary fund of P5 million per annum? Is it true that you are operating without a budget for 2002 because you refuse to accept the limits set by the OWWA Board that you spend only 80 percent of last year’s collection?"

Villarama challenged Soriano to publish OWWA’s financial statements for the past five years so that "we can reassure overseas workers that the managers of their funds are capable of taking care of these funds and are not using them for their (own) benefit."

"Any office that collects funds and does not remit (them) to the National Treasury has an obligation to make a public accounting of these funds at the end of every fiscal year," he said.

Villarama used to head the Task Force Against Illegal Recruitment when he was assistant secretary of the Department of Labor and Employment between 1982 and 1986.