HOUSE TO PROBE P179-BILLION AFP SLUSH FUND DURING GMA TERM
MANILA, FEBRUARY 17, 2011 (STAR) By Jess Diaz - The House committee on national defense will inquire into the alleged "conversion" into slush funds of a total of P179.4 billion in salaries appropriated for the Department of National Defense-Armed Forces of the Philippines (DND-AFP) during the Arroyo administration.
The inquiry was prompted by Resolution 967 filed by Muntinlupa Rep. Rodolfo Biazon, defense committee chairman and former AFP chief of staff.
Biazon cited an article in The STAR on Tuesday about the revelations made by Rep. Neri Colmenares of the militant party-list group Bayan Muna on the huge amount of alleged AFP conversions from 2002 to 2010, or during the nine-year watch of former President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo.
"There is a need to look into the new report to determine whether part of the budgetary allocations for the cited period for 'personal services' (the budget language for salaries) were indeed converted into slush funds for use of senior officers of the AFP and the chief of staff," Biazon said.
He said if Colmenares' claims are found to have basis, "appropriate actions (should) be taken thereon, to include the crafting of legislation to preclude its occurrence."
In his exposé, Colmenares tried to link Arroyo, now a congresswoman representing Pampanga's second district, to the supposed P179.4-billion conversions.
"Where did all this money go, and in all those years, did GMA know nothing about it?" Colmenares asked.
Citing figures taken from the annual budgets between 2002 and 2010, he said the P179.4 billion represents excess appropriations for salaries given by Congress to the DND-AFP.
He said the legislature appropriated a total of P343.4 billion for "personal services" or PS, while total compensation requests by the DND-AFP amounted to slightly over P164 billion.
He said he was shocked by the huge amount of the discrepancy or the excess appropriations for salaries when he compared the amounts actually budgeted and the fund requests submitted by the military-defense establishment, together with their staffing positions.
He pointed out that based on the testimonies in the Senate of retired Lt. Col. George Rabusa, former AFP budget officer, PS appropriations were the favorite allocations that were converted into slush funds, which Rabusa said were shared by senior officers led by the chief of staff.
Based on Colmenares' research, in 2010, Congress appropriated P41.3 billion in PS for AFP-DND, which asked for only P19.4 billion for 137,453 positions.
In 2009, P41.2 billion was budgeted against a P19.2-billion request for 135,580 positions.
In 2008, the budget for PS was P36 billion, but the actual AFP-DND request was only P17.3 billion for positions numbering 135,669.
Some P35.8 billion was budgeted for salaries in 2007 versus a request for P17.4 billion for 143,993 positions. The same amount was budgeted in 2006, against a request for P18.1 billion for 142,203 positions.
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