House probes disaster funds

MANILA, Philippines - The House of Representatives is set to conduct an inquiry into the reported non-release of calamity funds and misuse of anti-poverty allocations under the Aquino administration.

The inquiry was prompted by separate resolutions filed by Reps. Alfredo Benitez of Negros Occidental and Ferdinand Martin Romualdez of Leyte, whose provinces were devastated by natural disasters in recent years, including Super Typhoon Yolanda in 2013.

Benitez, chairman of the House committee on housing and urban development, cited the latest report of the Commission on Audit (COA) on the failure of the Office of the Civil Defense (OCD) to disburse funds intended for victims of calamities amounting to P1 billion.

The OCD reportedly disbursed only P81 million out of the P466 million foreign and local donations to assist victims, the COA report said.

The lawmaker said the failure of the OCD and other frontline agencies tasked to give immediate aid to calamity victims “cannot be tolerated and therefore merits an investigation.”

Benitez lamented that while the “severity of the effects of the recent calamities” triggered an outpouring of aid from many nations, the OCD just deposited the donations in banks.

Romualdez, leader of the independent bloc, called for a similar probe on the status of other donations received by other government agencies like the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for victims of Typhoon Yolanda.

He dismissed as “disgustingly pathetic” the excuse by the OCD that the donations had been withheld because of the non-submission of requirements by the victims.

“The homes and possessions of the victims were either destroyed or severely damaged by Yolanda, along with scores of government offices. So how can the OCD expect them to have complete requirements?” he pointed out.

He also sought an immediate financial and performance audit of all poverty alleviation programs of the Aquino administration to ensure that funds are being spent solely for the needs of the poor.

“The Aquino administration has been consistently boasting of supposed gains or expanded coverage in anti-poverty efforts. But all we get to hear are numbers and anybody can cite huge figures anytime for what he or she has supposedly done,” he said.

Palace: COA report not real time

Malacañang said yesterday concerned government agencies should be able to explain their unused funds for disaster response amounting to P15.7 billion.

“Our agencies are very transparent… We will be more than willing to respond to all those concerns,” presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said.

He said the COA reports are not real-time because the COA would still have to collate and gather all data from departments and agencies.

“There are certain interview portions there. If they spot a problem, they have what we call audit observation. In that audit observation, they give the opportunity to the agency to respond. And then, at the end of the report, there’s what we call the exit conference, where the COA auditor and the agency discuss it to tell them what the report will be,” Lacierda said.

“The response of the agency, I may be wrong, but sometimes (is) not carried in the report. But because of the length of time it takes for them to gather the report, at some point within those observations, the agencies have already responded to the concerns of the observations. So by the time the report comes in… the concerns of the report may have been addressed. I am just saying this as a general proposition,” he explained.

‘DSWD ready for probe’

The DSWD said it is always ready for a congressional inquiry into the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, the government’s flagship poverty alleviation program implemented by DSWD.

DSWD spokesman Javier Jimenez also said there were instances when the public was consulted regarding various issues on the CCT program.

He cited academic and public fora that were held to present the results of the first and second impact evaluation of the CCT program. In those fora, participants suggested ways to enhance program operations and implementation. The results of the two impact evaluations can be accessed on the DSWD website.

He also cited the recent DSWD 2016 committee and plenary budget hearings at the House of Representatives showing how DSWD utilizes its budget.

Jimenez maintained that the 4.4 million beneficiaries of CCT program are real. The DSWD will launch a Twitter campaign in the coming days where beneficiaries will be asked to tweet a picture of their families, their IDs and their household numbers as proof of their existence. With Rainier Allan Ronda, Aurea Calica