PCGG OIC to curtail foreign junkets of execs

MANILA, Philippines – The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) will limit the contingent of officials and lawyers of the commission going abroad for litigation of pending recovery cases.

Narciso Nario, PCGG commissioner and officer-in-charge, said that as head of the agency during the indefinite leave of absence of chairman Camilo Sabio, he will reduce the size of PCGG delegations going overseas supposedly to attend to foreign litigation.

Nario said foreign trips were unnecessarily depleting the resources of the PCGG.

“We can’t afford to send so many contingents of lawyers abroad. Two or three might be enough,” he said.

“We don’t want that the money intended for foreign litigation be depleted easily or abruptly,” Nario said.

He added that he had already asked their finance department to look into foreign trips taken by PCGG officials in the past.

Nario said he had also ordered the department to account for funds taken from the $34.14-million foreign litigation of over $300-million Marcos family Swiss accounts earlier recovered by the Philippine government.

As one of the two commissioners handling litigation, it was learned that Nario has never joined any of the frequent foreign trips taken by chairman Sabio and other commissioners to look into the status of pending foreign cases.

Sabio, before starting his indefinite leave of absence last Monday, had taken a week-long trip to Europe supposedly on official PCGG business, joined by commissioners Ricardo Abcede and Jaime Bautista, and a number of PCGG lawyers.   – Rainier Allan Ronda