‘4 senators endorsed NGOs’

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Audit (COA) has confirmed that Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Gregorio Honasan, Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr. had a hand in choosing non-government organizations (NGOs) linked to businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles as recipients of their pork barrel funds.

COA Chairman Grace Pulido-Tan told the first hearing of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee yesterday that the COA report revealed the four senators were all found to have provided their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allocation to the NGOs linked to Napoles.

Tan said eight out of the 82 NGOs cited in its audit report on the use of the PDAF of legislators from 2007 to 2009 were associated with Napoles.

Of the eight NGOs, seven received funds from four senators in the total amount of P1.093 billion during the period reviewed by the COA.

The eight NGOs linked to Napoles are the Agri & Economic Program for Farmers Foundation, Inc. (AEPFI); Agricultura Para sa Magbubukid Foundation, Inc. (APMFI); Countrywide Agri and Rural Economic Development Foundation, Inc. (CARED); Masaganang Ani Para sa Magsasaka Foundation, Inc. (MAMFI); People’s Organization for Progress and Development Foundation, Inc. (POPDFI); Philippine Agri & Social Economic Development Foundation, Inc. (PASEDF); Philippine Social Development Foundation, Inc. (PSDFI); and the Social Development Program for Farmers Foundations, Inc. (SPDFFI).

The PASEDF received the PDAF of Pangasinan Rep. Conrado Estrella III and former Manila Rep. Ernesto Nieva only.

The hearing yesterday, along with the presentation made by Tan, was entirely on the eight Napoles-linked NGOs in the audit report.

According to Tan, most of the PDAF that went to the Napoles-linked NGOs funded livelihood projects that were supposed to be implemented by the National Livelihood Development Corp. (NLDC), Technology Resource Center (TRC), National Agribusiness Corp. (NABCOR), Zamboanga del Norte Rubber Estate Corp. (ZREC), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Department of Agriculture (DA).

Based on the COA report, Enrile, Revilla, Estrada and Honasan were all found to have provided their PDAF to the Napoles-linked NGOs.

Revilla provided a total of P483.49 million; Enrile, P332.7 million; Estrada, P262.575 million; and Honasan, P14.55 million spread out to the different implementing agencies.

The list of legislators and NGO-recipients is contained in Annex A of the COA’s audit report or the list of NGOs to which the PDAF was transferred.

Blue Ribbon committee chairman Sen. Teofisto Guingona III asked Tan if the transfer of PDAF from the implementing agencies to the NGOs was legal under the law in light of reports that a lot of the NGOs were bogus.

“Based on our review and in our considered opinion, there is no law or ordinance that gives authority to transfer public funds from a government agency to a private corporation like an NGO,” Tan said in Filipino.

She also cited the implementing rules and regulations of Republic Act 9184 or the Government Procurement Act, stating that government funds could only be transferred to NGOs if there is a supporting ordinance or appropriation authorizing this.

“In our opinion as auditors, the transfer of public funds to the NGOs from the implementing agencies is not supported by law,” Tan said.

Guingona asked Tan if there were legislators who identified specific NGOs that would receive their PDAF.

“In most cases, yes,” Tan replied.

When asked for proof of this, Tan said most of the legislators submitted endorsement letters to the implementing agencies, which they then attached to the disbursement vouchers for release of the funds.

Endorsement letters

Tan declined to provide the names of the senators who sent endorsement letters to the implementing agencies, saying they were already turned over to the Office of the Ombudsman and the Department of Justice (DOJ) in connection with their respective investigations into the pork barrel scam.

Guingona presented a sample letter to Tan just to confirm if it was anything like the endorsement letters that were provided by the implementing agencies.

After looking at the letter, Tan said it was “typical of the so-called endorsement letters.”

Asked by Guingona if the letter was a directive from the senator concerned, Tan said that “it is of the same tenor.”

Guingona asked Tan if she came across the letters of Enrile, Revilla and Estrada during the audit, and she confirmed this, adding that they were signed either by the senators personally or by their representative.

“Are these the bases of the IAs (implementing agencies) in the release of funds to the NGOs?” Guingona asked Tan.

Tan replied that based on the responses of the IAs, they are saying that in effect they either have no intervention in the selection of the NGOs or they are merely following the instructions of the sponsoring legislators.

Citing specific examples, Tan said that the TRC stated that “the Center’s intervention in the projects tended to be more recommendatory in nature. The projects were endorsed by the sponsoring legislators and in almost all cases, we did not have a hand in selecting the NGO partners.”

In the case of the NLDC, Tan said “we can only rely on the certification issued by the offices of the legislators, since they are the ones directly supervising project implementation. We do not look into incorporators of the NGOs being endorsed by the legislators.”

As a third example, Tan cited the case of the DSWD-central office, which stated that “the NGOs were identified by legislators. The department is merely facilitating the release of fund transfers to the NGOs and is neither implementing the projects or programs proposed nor are we involved in the disbursement of the transferred funds.”

According to Tan, Revilla and Enrile confirmed either his or his representative’s signatures in the documents.

Tan said Enrile’s deputy chief of staff denied signing some of the documents carrying his or her name, while Honasan’s project coordinator confirmed his signatures on two documents but did not comment on the others.

In the case of Estrada, Tan said the senator did not respond to their requests for confirmation.

Call Napoles

Guingona said that he would issue a subpoena for the documents, which would serve as proof that some lawmakers endorsed certain NGOs as recipients of their PDAF.

“We are trying to trace where in the process of releasing the PDAF does the opportunity to divert the fund comes in. The chain of procedures in the release of the PDAF is implemented to ensure accountability,” Guingona said.

“We learned today that there are instances when key procedures were bypassed to ensure that specific NGOs be the beneficiary of the PDAF. We must determine whether this action is illegal. It may be irregular, but we must determine whether the law was violated,” he added.

Sen. Francis Escudero asked the committee to summon Napoles, her brother Reynald Lim, the heads of the TRC, NABCOR, ZREC, Philippine Forest Corp. (Philforest), DA, DSWD, Department of Budget and Management and the C.C. Barredo Publishing House in future hearings.

Guingona said the second hearing scheduled for next Thursday would continue with the testimony of the COA’s representative and probably an official from DBM.

There were others

Many of the senators, however, who were implicated in the pork barrel fund scam and the 2007 to 2009 COA report chose not to attend the Senate hearing.

But for Sen. Ralph Recto, who decided to attend the hearing, it was a chance for him to clear his name from perceptions that his PDAF was misused.

Recto did not let the opportunity pass when his name was mentioned during yesterday’s hearing as one of the senators mentioned in the COA’s audit report on the use of the PDAF from 2007 to 2009.

Recto was actually not among the four senators whose names were mentioned as having allocated their PDAF to NGOs linked to Napoles.

Guingona had made it clear in his opening statement that the focus of the probe would be on the irregularities in the use of the PDAF that were linked to Napoles.

Tan stuck to the issue and presented her agency’s findings on the transfer of the PDAF of several legislators to the Napoles-linked NGOs.

However, when Tan revealed that the COA also has audit reports on some other agencies, including Philforest, which covers the period of 2011 to 2012, she said almost the same legislators were involved and there were some others too.

Tan said the COA’s auditors realized a pattern was emerging from their audit of the PDAF and it was the same implementing agencies that were involved in the alleged misuse of the funds.

She said the National Agribusiness Corp., for instance, was “pretty notorious” as well as the ZNREC.

Asked by Escudero if the same legislators were involved in the COA’s other audit reports, Tan said the list was “very, very close.”

She said some of the members of Congress mentioned in the COA’s audit report for 2007 to 2009 were still in the Philforest report and “two additional senators.”

This prompted Senate President Franklin Drilon to direct Tan to reveal the names of the two senators, in the spirit of fairness.

Tan, however, refused, saying the COA policy does not divulge any information until the actual report is released.

In order to appease Drilon, Tan said the two senators were not present in the Senate session hall where yesterday’s hearing was held.

Just when the hearing was about to be adjourned, Sen. Nancy Binay demanded that Tan reveal all the names of the senators who were mentioned in the 2007 to 2009 report.

Tan wanted to beg off from the directive of Binay because she was hypoglycemic and could no longer continue answering more questions.

It was already close to 1 p.m. when Binay made her manifestation, 30 minutes beyond the deadline imposed by Guingona for the hearing.

Since Tan could no longer continue, she asked COA director Susan Garcia to take her place just to read the names of the other senators.

Garcia started with Sen. Manuel Lapid and former senator Edgardo Angara, then mentioned Recto.

This prompted an immediate response from Recto, who confronted Garcia about the details of the report.