Pichay: I bought two tractors with P3.2 million in agri funds

Surigao del Sur Rep. Prospero Pichay Jr. said yesterday he used the P3.25 million that the Department of Agriculture (DA) released to him before the May 2004 elections to buy two tractors for farmers in Cantilan town in his district.

"I bought two tractors which were delivered to the farmers’ association in Cantilan," he said in an interview with dzMM’s Anthony Taberna.

The money allotted to Pichay is part of more than P62.8 million that the DA, through the elusive former undersecretary Jocelyn "Jocjoc" Bolante, gave to lawmakers and local officials in the Surigao-Agusan provinces, know as the Caraga Region.

Some P22.6 million of that amount appeared to have been diverted to the favorite foundations of the fund recipients.

The P62.8 million was part of the P2.8 billion in fertilizer, farm inputs and farm implements funds that Malacañang released to the DA upon Bolante’s request between February and April 2004.

Another Caraga congressman, Leovigildo Banaag of Agusan del Norte, said his office "did not receive any money directly from the Department of Agriculture."

In a radio interview, he recalled that in November or December 2003, he wrote then agriculture secretary Luis "Cito" Lorenzo seeking assistance for farmers in his district after it was battered by a typhoon and Caraga was declared a calamity area.

He said he knew that Lorenzo released P3 million for his district, but "it was not coursed through us."

He said he did not know the Ikaw at Ako Foundation that the DA Regional Field Office No. 13 based in Butuan City reported was the payee of three checks representing the funds allotted to him.

Since it was officials of the agriculture department who handled the money, it was they who must have chosen the foundation, he added.

The P2.8-billion fertilizer fund scam is now being investigated by both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The Senate committee on agriculture, chaired by Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr., has come up with an initial report on its inquiry. The report largely blames Bolante for the scam.

On the other hand, the House good government committee has conducted only one hearing. Its chairman, Iloilo Rep. Arthur Defensor, is listed in DA documents as the "proponent/recipient" of P3 million in fertilizer funds.

In Butuan City, the Department of Agriculture Caraga Regional Office denied late yesterday afternoon that it had submitted reports about the so-called Caraga Fertilizer fund anomaly allegedly diverted by some congressmen and local officials to favorite foundations. 

Reacting to a news report published in the front page of yesterday’s issue, Ricardo C. Regis, OIC Regional Director of the Department of Agriculture Regional Field Office-13 told The STAR that they have not submitted reports nor sent any data to their central office in Manila. Neither have they divulged information to media about diversion by some congressmen and local officials in the region of some P22-M fertilizer funds, he said. — With Ben Serrano