‘P20-M donation used for calamity victims’

The P20 million given to the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) by the Land Bank of the Philippines in 1998 was used to help calamity victims.

Chairwoman Leonora de Jesus of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council told the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee yesterday the money was part of the P130 million given by private and government finance institutions for the President’s Special Fund.

De Jesus, who was former PMS head, said the balance of the Special Fund was transferred to the National Treasury, and that all disbursements and accountings were in accordance with the General Appropriations Act.

"The President has the sole discretion were it would go," she said.

De Jesus said the PMS, unlike the Department of Education, Culture and Sports, had not used the P20 million to buy luxury cars for its officials.

The money was used to help victims of calamities in various provinces, especially those affected by the series of typhoons that hit the country in 1998, she added.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr., chairman of the Blue Ribbon Committee, appeared to have been satisfied by the testimony of De Jesus and allowed her to leave early.

On the other hand, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile said he has received a very important document that could pin down Education Secretary Andrew Gonzalez for the alleged illegal opening of an account in the Pasig branch of Land Bank.

Enrile said the document, dated Jan. 30, 1999, authorized Land Bank to open the account where the bank’s P12 million donation to the education department was deposited.

Earlier, Land Bank officials said the money was intended for the purchase of office equipment and computers for the education department.

However, it was later discovered that the education department used the P12 million to buy luxury cars for Gonzalez and other education officials.

Enrile said education officials violated the law when they did not inform the Commission on Audit (COA) about the account’s existence, and when they failed to register the donation in the accounting books of the education department.

"The letter clearly indicated that Secretary (Gonzalez) and Undersecretaries Antonio Valdes and Bartolome Carala opened a secret bank account that was not reported to the COA," he said.

The investigations on the Land Bank donations to the Presidential Management Staff and the education department were triggered by Enrile’s exposé that education officials had spent P12 million in donation to buy luxury cars.

While the education department’s case was being heard, information reached the Senate that the PMS had received a P20-million donation from the Land Bank.

The Blue Ribbon Committee then summoned De Jesus to explain if the PMS did receive the amount during her term, and if so, where it had gone and how it was spent.