C.O.A. Uncovers Serious ‘Mess’ With Yolanda Fund, Cash Aid

P9B missing, houses not built; DSWD’s Soliman told to resign

MANILA – Amidst the resignation of Health Secretary Enrique Ona over alleged anomalies in the Department of Health and Rehabilitation Czar Panfilo Lacson, lawmakers have come out in the open calling Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman to resign in the wake of Commission on Audit (COA) reports confirming irregularities in the implementation of projects for super typhoon Yolanda victims and the multi-billion-peso Conditional Cash Transfer project.

Reps. Jonathan de la Cruz (Abakada Party-list) and Luz Ilagan (Gabriela Party-list) whose group had conducted their own investigations on the DSWD anomalies called for immediate action on the findings of the latest COA audit examination, the second this year, that scrutinized disbursements in the implementation of the financial dole-out program designed to help poor Filipino families.
Dela Cruz and Ilagan, at the same time, urged President Benigno Aquino III to sack Secretary Soliman for failing to explain P9 billion missing in the Conditional Cash Transfer program, including a P1-billion allocation of awarded dole. Soliman vehemently denied any anomalies, pointing out that the DSWD had answered all the findings of COA, but apparently the lawmakers and other groups are not satisfied with the DSWD chief’s answers.
Last year, Soliman came under fire for delays and allegedly “politicizing” the distribution of relief goods and rehabilitation materials. Some of the relief goods like rice and canned goods that reached the victims were already rotten because of the delays.
Soliman and the DSWD were also assailed for failure to implement rehabilitation projects like shelters in many areas devastated by typhoons and for allegedly spending rehab and shelter funds for other purposes.
Dela Cruz said Soliman was allocated P65 billion in CCT funding for 2015 and P2 billion in supplemental budget for Yolanda victims which should clear scrutiny of the Commission on Audit.
“COA reports show Soliman had failed to account for billions in taxpayers’ money that did not go to its intended purpose,” Dela Cruz said.
“This is not the first time that the Commission on Audit found irregularities in Soliman’s handling of public funds. How come the President is not doing anything about it? Why is she not being made accountable?” the solon said. Malacanang has defended Soliman in the wake of the irregularities discovered by COA.
Dela Cruz said Soliman was the subject of a COA probe on the P5-billion unliquidated CCT funds coursed through the Philippine Postal Corp.
This time, he said, the COA has found the DSWD handed out more than P1 billion to about 364,000 families whose names were “missing” from the CCT database in 2013.
“Soliman could not also explain where she brought the P5 billion in administrative fees to handle the implementation of the CCT program. Congress has been asking her to account for that fund but to no avail. Why is the President letting her get away with that?” Dela Cruz said.
An earlier audit examination report on the implementation of the anti-poverty program showed that the DSWD released P429.5 million in CCT funds to 240,321 household recipients whose names are not in the official list of beneficiaries.
“This is not surprising at all. We have always maintained that this scheme has many loose ends with so much wastage and has been corrupted, so we have this sordid mess costing taxpayers billions of pesos,” said De la Cruz.
“If Secretary Ona had to leave on the basis of an alleged overprice of millions of pesos (in the vaccination contract), we cannot just shrug off billions of pesos lost as a result of neglect and corruption,” said De la Cruz.
Under the national budget for 2015, the CCT program was alloted P65 billion for some four million recipients.
“Now, it is not just congressmen who were complaining that the DSWD purged the list and took out the beneficiaries identified with and recommended by opposition lawmakers. We later learned that they had been delisted and either replaced by those they perceived as supporters of the administration or names were not inputted in the database but were reported to have received the amount even if they did not,” Dela Cruz said.
The COA report showed that the supposed “poorest of the poor” listed in DSWD’s database included government employees and Filipinos working abroad who received CCT releases, he said.
The state auditors also found that there were double entries of names of beneficiaries, who got the doles twice in monthly subsidies of up to P1,500 per family with three children with ages ranging from 0-18.
“That’s exactly why we are puzzled that the COA did not even bother to issue notice of disallowances or recommend any appropriate actions against Soliman,” Dela Cruz said.
“If resigned Health Secretary Enrique Ona had to leave on the basis of an alleged overprice of millions of pesos, we cannot just shrug off billions of pesos in CCT funds lost as a result of neglect and corruption.”
Released two days before Christmas, the 2013 annual audit report for the DSWD included the duplication of names of beneficiaries in the payrolls, putting in serious doubt the distribution of P46.502 million to the poor.
COA chided the DSWD for failing to deliver P330.24 million of the P10.629 billion in cash dole-outs to the poor. Grants for distribution to beneficiaries in eight regions in the country were unclaimed.
“Refunds of grants in the total amount of P2.459 billion from the Landbank for ineligible beneficiaries and unclaimed grants representing 6.32 percent of the CCT payroll of P38.915 billion were not completely documented to establish the correctness of recorded returned grants,” the COA said.