47 legislators spent P141-M DAP funds for milk feeding

MANILA, Philippines - Forty seven legislators and a foundation used millions of pesos in Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) funds for milk feeding programs from 2011 to 2014, a Commission on Audit (COA) report on the National Dairy Authority (NDA) released yesterday revealed.

State auditors did not identify the lawmakers or provide details on the separate milk feeding programs.

The COA report did not speak of misuse of any public funds except for what it called unauthorized grant of honoraria to the bids and awards committee (BAC) amounting to P136,759.

Parts of the DAP have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

State auditors said the NDA disbursed and obligated a total of P141.313 million of the P213.116 million received from the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) as of Dec. 31, 2014. 

“The said fund was intended for the milk feeding program of 53 legislators and a foundation under the Dairy Enterprise Development Program funded out of the DAP for 2011,” the audit team reported.

Last March 16, a total of P71.803 million was returned to the BTr in view of the SC’s ruling on DAP.

The COA report said the amount returned constituted unallocated funds received on June 18, 2014 of P45.676 million, unimplemented projects of six legislators totaling P21.226 million, unallocated project management cost of P4.901 million and the unutilized obligated balance of P27.158 million.

According to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), the Aquino administration introduced the DAP as a reform intervention to speed up public spending and ultimately boost economic growth.

The spending program was described as a mechanism to support high-impact and priority programs and projects using savings and unprogrammed funds.