Senators quiz DND, AFP over P13.7-billion unliquidated fund transfers

November 17 ------ Two senators on Tuesday demanded an explanation over some P13.7-billion unliquidated funds transferred from the budget of the Department of National Defense (DND) and the Philippine Army to two government agencies. During the Senate plenary debates of the 2022 General Appropriations Bill (GAB), Senator Panfilo Lacson raised the Commission on Audit (COA) 2020 report, which showed at least P8.5 billion Philippine Army (PA) funds transferred to the Philippine International Trading Corporation (PITC) from 2007 to 2020 that remain unaccounted for.

“There is a cumulative amount of P8.523 billion from 2007 to 2020, total unliquidated balances of the Philippine Army budget na nakalagak, parked with the PITC,” Lacson said. Apart from this, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon also questioned the unliquidated balance of P5.2 billion from the fund transfers of the DND to the Department of Budget and Management Procurement Service (PS-DBM) from years 2014 to 2020. “Under the COA report, as of December 31, 2020, the unliquidated balance is P5.2 billion, which is the balance for transfers over the years from DND to PS-DBM,” Drilon said.

Senator Ronald Bato Dela Rosa, sponsor of the DND’s proposed P297.1-billion budget for 2022, failed to reconcile the balances that the Philippine Army has with the PITC as pointed out by Lacson. Meanwhile, Dela Rosa, citing the explanation of the DND, said the updated record of the department showed that it only has P617 million balance in the PS-DBM. “Maybe the difference is that ‘yung sinasabi mong (what you mentioned) P5 billion are already delivered, most of it are already delivered to the procuring agency,” Dela Rosa said. But Drilon is not satisfied with the figures provided by Dela Rosa, asking the latter to check the records with the DND.

“So really this is something that must be looked into on the basis of the statements of the good senator from Cavite (Lacson), it would appear that there is P8.5 billion from the Philippine Army alone [in] PITC,” Drilon said. “That puts us as about P10.2 billion of [DND] funds parked in both PS-DBM and PITC,” he added. The minority leader requested the DND to provide a written report on the unliquidated balances with the PITC and the PS-DBM. “From this, we can craft with a policy, especially for the upcoming 2022 General Appropriations Act because this habit of passing on to PS-DBM and to PITC acquisition of common-use equipment gave rise to a lot of anomalies,” Drilon said.

Starting 2017, Drilon said the Philippine Army funds “parked” in the PITC “ballooned.” In 2016, he noted that the Philippine Army funds transferred to PITC was only P724 million. It suddenly increased in 2017 with P2.5 billion, P3.6 billion in 2018, P3 billion in 2019, and P2.6 billion in 2020. “So this is something that I think the public deserves an explanation as what is happening. We are the ones that flagged these practices and we need the data because we have to craft this special provision in the 2022 budget to stop this practice….It leads to corruption,” Drilon said, in which Dela Rosa agreed.

Source: gmanetwork.com