'P4.8 billion released by DA before polls'

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Franklin Drilon revealed yesterday that around P4.8 billion was released by the Department of Agriculture (DA) to the agency’s regional field units (RFUs) for farm-to-market roads and other infrastructure projects last February to March, which he suspects could have been used for the campaign in the May 10 elections.

Drilon said that there was a request for the issuance of advice of sub-allotment to the DA-RFUs last Feb. 22 by then DA officer-in-charge Bernie Fondevilla in the amount of P3.65 billion for the implementation of other infrastructure projects.

In Fondevilla’s memorandum addressed to DA undersecretary for administration and finance Belinda Gonzales, he said that the funds would be taken from the GMA Rice Program for 2010 special allotment release order (SARO) dated Feb. 10.

A second memorandum was issued on March 23 for the same purpose but this time for P1.246 billion taken from the GMA Rice Program for 2010 capital outlay funds SARO dated March 17.

“There was apparently haste in immediately cascading these funds to the RFUs. We still have to look into this,” Drilon said.

He said that there has been no submission of an accomplishment report from the DA on these infrastructure projects.

Drilon said that these were “highly questionable releases” done near the election period.

“So these are releases which appear to be election-related and like the fertilizer scam, the funds were released to the RFUs,” Drilon said.

“It is very suspicious that in just two days – Feb. 22, 2010 and March 23, 2010 – more than P4.8 billion was cascaded to the 13 regional offices of the DA,” he added.

Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri also questioned the funds the DA allocated for infrastructure projects such as the farm-to-market roads, which could have been used for corruption.

Zubiri cited the report of the Commission on Audit (COA) about the farm-to-market roads of the DA for the past three years, P5.2 billion of which were not “efficiently and effectively implemented.”

During yesterday’s hearing on the proposed 2011 budget of the DA, Zubiri asked for the submission of the complete list of farm-to-market roads that were given out in the last three years.

He told Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala that a detailed inventory of these projects should be done in order to determine if there were any irregularities.

“The COA cited irregularities on farm-to-market roads worth over P37 million and there are several of them, so I hope that under your leadership this would no longer happen because almost half of the DA’s budget is lost to corruption. It would be noteworthy if you can make the change,” Zubiri said.

Zubiri also claimed that he had affidavits from several mayors of different provinces claiming that fixers at the DA approached them to push for their projects and demanded 30 percent cash from the project cost.

“If we want to improve the performance of our agriculture sector we must weed out corruption in the implementation of infrastructure projects which has been the milking cow of unscrupulous officials of the past administrations,” Zubiri said.

Drilon also revealed last week that P1.3 billion was released by the Department of Public Works and Highways to eight local government units for dredging, desilting and re-channeling of rivers.

“We all know that dredging is a rich source of corruption because it is very difficult, if not impossible, to monitor accomplishments in dredging. You cannot measure how deep the dredging went,” Drilon said.

Drilon suspected the funds were used for election purposes.