COA bares P200-million unexplained CAAP withdrawals

MANILA, Philippines - State auditors have discovered questionable withdrawals amounting to more than P500 million from the savings account of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) in 2009.

In the 2009 audit report released late last year, the Commission on Audit (COA) said there was “non-recording” of credits-withdrawals amounting to $5.12 million or P237.69 million and debits-remittances amounting to $568 million or P263.7 million from the CAAP savings account with the Land Bank of the Philippines. COA said the unrecorded withdrawals cast doubt on the balance of the CAAP savings account which stood at P3.666 billion.

COA also discovered an additional P6.018 million in unrecorded withdrawals from another account of the CAAP with the Landbank, and another withdrawal of P102,764 from a United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) savings account. The CAAP Employees Union (CAAP-EU) said the COA findings on the huge withdrawals in 2009 should be cause for concern, especially when similar huge withdrawals were made by the CAAP in the early months of 2010.                  

“We call on COA to look deeply into these non-recorded withdrawals so that immediate action can be taken if necessary to protect the CAAP’s financial condition,” said a CAAP union official who declined to be identified.             

The union said the so-called pabaon or sendoff money practice could be the cause of the almost P400-million worth of withdrawals made by the CAAP in February and March 2010. The union earlier exposed the withdrawal of almost P400 million from the UCPB and Landbank accounts of the aviation body by former CAAP director general Ruben Ciron before he was replaced by Alfonso Cusi.

Cusi’s appointment to the CAAP was one of the so-called midnight appointments made by former president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in the last months of her administration. Ciron was a former Philippine Air Force (PAF) general who served in various posts at the Department of National Defense before he was appointed by Arroyo to the CAAP.

The CAAP passbook with UCPB showed that the aviation authority withdrew P150 million on Jan. 7; and P80 million on March 2 last year.

The Landbank passbook, on the other hand, showed that there were four substantial US dollar withdrawals made by the CAAP in a two-week period last year: $1 million on Feb. 23, $1 million on Feb. 26, and $2 million on March 2.

“These withdrawals are highly questionable since it was made when he (Ciron) was known to be on the way out due to the CAAP’s failures,” the union official said.