Palace sitting on P1.4B calamity fund – CoA

Credit to Author: GLEE JALEA| Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2019 16:18:04 +0000

The Commission on Audit (CoA) has called out the Office of the President (OP) for its failure to utilize donated funds amounting to P1.4 billion intended to help victims of calamities in the country.

Workers remove a fallen electric post from the road during the onslaught of Typhoon Rosita (international name: Yuki) in Isabela province in October 2018. PHOTO BY DJ DIOSINA

In its 2018 audit report, the commission said the OP had not come up with a solid plan on how to use the P1.412 billion donated by Benpres Holdings Corp. owned by the Lopez family.

Through a deed of donation dated August 24, 1990 with the Benpres Corp. and through common shares of stocks under the Meralco Foundation Inc., the OP is mandated to use the donated funds for “economic development according to a national priority plan,” which includes assistance to victims and areas affected by earthquakes, floods and other calamities.

Of the P1.412 billion, P1.38 billion was received by the Bureau of Treasury on Dec. 30, 2010, while the remaining P29.6 million was based on the interest earned as of Dec. 31, 2012.

According to state auditors, the funds were untapped despite the 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck Bicol in 2013, the huge devastation of Super Typhoon Yolanda (Typhoon Haiyan) in Visayas and the Marawi siege in 2017.

“Such amount could have been utilized by OP in mitigating poverty and addressing the needs of the people during times of natural disaster or calamities that caused damage to the property and lives of the Filipino people in the past years,” the CoA said in its report. It noted that the same observation was made in 2016 for the non-formulation of guidelines to utilize the donated funds.

In the same report, CoA said the Socio-Civic Projects Fund (SCPF), formerly the President’s Social Fund, granted financial assistance to 48,955 government employees affected by Typhoon Yolanda and the 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Bicol as of 2018.

Of the SCPF’s P2.14 billion funds, P1.44 billion or 67.29 percent was given to beneficiaries in 2015 under the first tranche, while P701 million was given under the second tranche from 2016 to 2018.

“The purpose of the financial assistance was to defray the equity for housing acquisition to replace washed-out houses or reconstruction of totally damaged houses and rehabilitation or repair of partially damaged houses,” the report read.

The OP also transferred P2 billion to the National Housing Authority (NHA), the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) and the Department of Education for Marawi’s rehabilitation, and for the psychological first aid training to be conducted by personnel in the area.

However, of this amount, the NHA and HUDCC only reported at least P113 million worth of disbursements as of December 2018.

In April, President Rodrigo Duterte said he would leave it to rich businessmen to spend for the full recovery of Marawi City in Lanao del Sur, two years after the Maute Group laid siege to the city, displacing thousands of residents.

Recent data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs showed that more than 66,000 people remain displaced, with majority staying with host families or in evacuation centers due to the government’s delayed assistance.

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