Gov't can't detect fraud among NGOs due to lack of resources

MANILA, Philippines - Citing lack of manpower and equipment, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) admitted on Thursday that it has failed to immediately discover fraud in the registration of non-government organizations (NGOs) including those allegedly set up by Janet Lim-Napoles.

During the resumption of the Senate probe on the alleged pork barrel scam, SEC chairperson Teresita Herbosa said they don't have sufficient resources to examine about 20,000 foundations including around 10,000 active ones.

"We can only do random examination... about only 6 to 10 percent of the total number... We cannot examine each and every of those 10,000 active foundations on a yearly basis," Herbosa told Sen. Teofisto Guingona III during the televised Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearing on Thursday.

When the alleged pork barrel scam was first exposed by media in 2013, Herbosa said the SEC immediately probed all the NGOs named in the news reports.

"[W]e did already send people to go to the addresses of the so-called incorporators of those foundations to check whether they are really legitimate persons," Herbosa said.

However, Herbosa said they only relied on the documents submitted to them by the NGOs since they lack equipment.

"We will admit that had we had sufficient resources including computer assisted review, we would have probably been able to detect fraud in procuring registration at the very first instance when they supplied or filed applications with us," Herbosa said.

But Herbosa clarified that based on these application documents, they could still detect "certain batches of fraud" such as those related to Taxpayer Identification Numbers.

Herbosa said right now, they are having the bidding process for a computer registration system that will improve the SEC's capabilities.

Aside from equipment, the SEC chief also admitted that they are also in need of additional personnel.

Herbosa said they only have eight processors in their corporate governance and finance department who would examine the 20,000 foundations.

She said based on their computation, the SEC would need at least 54 processors so that 200 foundations can be examined by one processor every year.

For his part, Guingona acknowledged the difficulties of the SEC in detecting fraud among NGOs.

"That's really a challenge," Guingona said. "I think that is the meat of the problem."

Guingona cited a position paper submitted by the SEC, which said that they need additional budget to boost their manpower.