COA reminds Senate, House on gender empowerment projects

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Audit (COA) has reminded the two chambers of Congress to implement projects and activities that would promote gender empowerment as mandated under Republic Act 9710 or the Magna Carta for Women.

In two separate annual audit reports, the COA noted that the Senate and House of Representatives failed to utilize five percent of their total appropriated budget last year for Gender and Development (GAD) programs in violation of Section 30 of RA 10964 or the General Appropriations Act of 2018.

The audit body said the House has not implemented any GAD projects at all. The Senate implemented nine out of its 11 listed projects.

The COA stressed that under Section 30 of RA 1094, government agencies should formulate GAD programs designed to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women.

The audit body said the House failed to implement any gender-related projects because it did not establish a GAD Focal Point System committee, which under the Magna Carta for Women should be responsible for the identification of specific projects and activities.

Based on COA’s records, the House had an appropriated budget of P11.304 billion for 2018.

As for the Senate, the audit body noted that out of its total appropriated budget of P5.827 billion for 2018, only 0.08 percent or P5 million was allocated for GAD programs.

Of the P5 million, the COA said only 44 percent or P2.188 million has been utilized for nine out of its 11 planned GAD projects.

The Senate failed to realize its plan to create a permanent GAD office that would regularly monitor gender-related programs as well as the procurement of materials and equipment for the GAD office’s operations. 

The Senate managed to achieve its goals to have an inventory and groupings of existing laws and bills concerning women according to the specific issues or concerns; conduct fora/roundtable discussions on bills promoting women’s empowerment and gender equality to gather inputs and supports from the women’s group; create a data bank of studies and issues related to women’s concerns to serve as reference of legislators and the conduct of gender sensitivity training for employees, among others.

In a reply to the audit report, the Senate informed the COA that a memo for the creation of the permanent GAD office has been prepared and submitted to the Office of the Senate Secretary.

The Senate admitted that its 2018 budget for GAD programs was “very minimal” compared to its total budget for the year. 

It explained that the GAA-mandated five-percent GAD allocation equivalent to P291.387 million was “simply far too much and beyond the absorptive capacity of the Senate to spend and utilize on GAD projects, activities and programs.”

The Senate admitted that “the lack of permanent GAD personnel to monitor the implementation of programs contributed to the failure to maximize and fully utilize the budget.” –  With Paolo Romero