SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH: BUDGET CHIEF'S GOOD MOVES ON AFP MESS
MANILA, FEBRUARY 19, 2011 (STAR) SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH By Ernesto M. Maceda - DBM Secretary Florencio "Butch" Abad has sent us a letter to inform us of certain actions he took with regards to the AFP corruption mess.
"We in the Aquino administration found it necessary to take advantage of the current prominence of the military 'conversions' issue in order to escalate reforms in the utilization of national defense funds. For so long, the AFP has been allowed to receive their full allocations without their submission of accountability reports or compliance with prudential standards on the use of public funds.
Another case in point: President Aquino ordered the cancellation of the P1-billion Kalayaan Barangay Fund, after we have found out that there were no accountability reports submitted by the AFP on the use of this fund; not even the cost and location. They only provided a listing of names of projects.
Another area of supposed "conversion" that we are now seeking to address is relative to the maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) and capital outlay (CO) allotments of the AFP. This includes the so-called practice of "certification" of expenditures without supporting documents and accountability reports. All of these happen because of poor internal control and weak procurement safeguards.
To address this, we have been consulting with DND Sec. Voltaire Gazmin to counter these opaque practices of the past. One of which is to standardize the maintenance and capital outlay requirements of military camps, and make this information available to them.
Sec. Abad informed us that he is open to the idea of funding the recruitment of 10,000 more soldiers if DND submits a request supported by their roaster of active military personnel.
The lack of the accounting for the P1 Billion Kalayaan Barangay should now be investigated by the AFP leadership considering that it is quite recent having been part of the 2010 budget, many of the responsible officers are still in the active service and the records should still be intact. This now confirms the suspicions that the lump sum appropriations insisted upon by PGMA were being set up for misuse.
Sec. Abad also informed us that P11 B for unfilled positions in the PNP, BFP and BJMP has been withheld by his office.
Sec. Abad should be commended for this series of remedial actions.
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ARMM ELECTIONS MUST GO ON . . . President Noynoy Aquino might be doing another wrong move should he insist on postponing the elections for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao scheduled this coming second Monday of August.
In fact, P-Noy is ill-advised on this initiative which also calls for the appointment of an officer-in-charge who will run ARMM as de facto regional governor until the next ARMM elections that will coincide with the 2013 midterm elections.
Our Malacañang sources revealed that newly-designated political affairs adviser Ronald Llamas is behind the Malacañang position for postponing the ARMM elections and appointment of an OIC since he has someone in mind, former Rep. Mujiv Hataman of the Anak-Mindanao (AMIN) partylist.
But former Tarlac Governor Margarita "Tingting" Cojuangco and her husband, the former Tarlac Rep. Jose "Peping" Cojuangco are against the postponement of the ARMM elections as espoused by their nephew, President Aquino.
The best argument of holding the ARMM elections as scheduled in August is the need to replace the 80 percent of incumbent ARMM officials who are allies and relatives of the Ampatuans.
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PNP PAYOLAS. . . Senator and former PNP Chief Panfilo 'Ping" Lacson has issued a statement confirming that slush fund/payola being given to ranking AFP officers is also practiced in the PNP. He said that upon assumption as Director General, he was informed he had a "Commander's reserve of P40 million, credit card with unlimited charging privileges and unlimited monthly gas allowance.
Former PNP Comptroller, now Cong. Romeo Acop claims it is a contingency fund of P44 million that's the same as a discretionary fund the PNP Chief can divert to any purpose.
Reports have reached us that during GMA's time, the Commander's reserve fund reached P100 million. Again, it happened because of collusion with the PNP auditors.
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AFP ANSWER. . .BGen. Jose Z. Mabanta Jr. sent the Philippine STAR an explanation to answer our column of Feb. 15, 2011. Since it's a very long letter, we will just reprint for this column the first point, and the other points in a later column. Mabanta's letter stated:
"First, on point number one, there is no truth to the allegations that there is a 20 percent or 25,000 vacancy in the AFP at this point in time. The truth is, the authorized staffing summary of military and civilian personnel for FY 2010 is 134,796 with an actual fill up of 131,577. This means only a variance of just less than one percent or 3,219. Savings are never realigned to the Monthly Operating and Other Expenses (MOOE) or other items but rather only to O1 fund requirements such as the Productivity Incentive Bonus or PIB (now called PEI), Combat Clothing Individual Equipment (CCIE) of Technical Administrative Services (TAS) Personnel, seven-day leave commutation of military personnel, hospitalization and medical reimbursements, promotion/long pay differentials, Pay and Allowances of Probationary Second Lieutenants, etc."
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TIDBITS. . . President Aquino attended a Valentine's Day party at the new La Vista residence of Pagcor Chairman "Bong" Naguiat.
PDEA reports that 639 Filipinos are languishing in jail in different countries worldwide on drug charges.
Marikina City BIR district officer Marcelino Yap was assassinated Thursday morning in Antipolo. . . Willyhardo Esponilla, 64, of the Division of City Schools of Caloocan City was shot dead by four men wearing bonnets on two motorcycles in front of his house on Nadurata St., Barangay 50. He is the 3rd Caloocan school official to be killed in the last 12 months.
Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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