DA forms fact-finding panel to investigate rice scam

MANILA, Philippines – Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary Arthur Yap yesterday made good on his promise to create a fact-finding committee to investigate issues raised by the Commission on Audit (COA) on fraudulent beneficiaries of the DA’s rice program.

Agriculture Assistant Secretary Eduardo Nolasco will chair the probe committee, while his members will be Director Vero Librojo, chief of the DA legal service as vice-chairperson; Estrella Tulay, executive assistant of the National Agricultural and Fisheries Council (NAFC); Elizabeth Dimapilis, accountant at the Office of the Secretary; Carlos Magnaye, officer-in-charge of the Planning and Programming Division of the Office of the Secretary; and Kathyrin Pioquinto and Jennifer Buan, panel legal consultants.

A slot in the committee has been reserved for a COA representative.

Ricardo Provido, former accountant and chairman of the Regional Agricultural and Fisheries Council in Western Visayas, will represent the private sector.

Provido will act as liaison to get the inputs of non-government organizations, church-based groups, and others that have partnered with the DA and local government units (LGUs) on food security projects mentioned in the COA report.

Even as Yap created the DA’s probe panel, he welcomed parallel probes being planned by Congress and the Office of the Ombudsman for the government to get to the bottom of the case and come up with recommendations on improving the current accountability and monitoring system in the implementation of farm productivity projects at the local level.

Yap said the DA panel would look into the possible complicity of or lapses committed by certain DA people related to the COA-reported discrepancies.

He had earlier clarified that the discrepancies identified by COA in its report had to do with projects implemented by municipal agricultural officers (MAOs) who, with the devolution of powers to LGUs under the Local Government Code, are now directly under the control of the LGUs and not the DA.

The DA has been trying to get back organizational supervision of the MAOs to allow better implementation of the department’s food sufficiency and security program. – Marianne Go