Kabataan Congresman Terry Ridon called for a congressional inquiry into the Grassroots Participatory Budgeting (GPB) funds distributed to the Local Government Units (LGUs). He said that there is another funding scam on the scale of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) and even pork barrel anomalys under the present administration.
He said that the Aquino administration distributed P20 billion under the GPB (Grassroots Participatory Budgeting) to local executives.
Some of it includes the:
- P403.5-million National Greening Program of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
- P869-million Health Facilities Enhancement Program of the Department of Health.
- P899-million Sustainable Livelihood Program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
- P76-million Sitio Electrification Program of the National Electrification Administration.
GPB started in 2013 and it reached P8.4 billion spread over 595 municipalities. For 2014, the budget under GPB soared to a total of P20.03 billion spread over 1,226 municipalities, almost on par with the budget for the now defunct Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).
GPB is like PDAF where in the LGUs are asked to give a “wish list” of P15 million worth of projects that they want to be funded by the national government, through consultations with local basic sector organizations (BSOs) and civil society organizations (CSOs).
If approved by the DBM, the projects would then be included in the proposed budget of specific agencies.
Source: Journal Online
Showing posts with label corruption Philippines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corruption Philippines. Show all posts
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
President PNoy Aquino Accused of Plunder
They filed on Tuesday morning a plunder case against Aquino together with Department of Budget and Management Secretary Florencio Abad, DAR Secretary Virgilio Delos Reyes and “pork-barrel queen” Janet-Lim Napoles.
Whistle-blower Benhur Luy and eight others connected to the Napoles scam were also charged with the felony.
KMP chairperson Rafael Mariano said that the complaint would show that the DAR is a pipeline that corrupt public officials use to steal from the national funds.
“This plunder complaint will show that under the Aquino regime, the DAR is not only a conduit of big landlords, like the Cojuangcos, in strengthening their control over vast haciendas but a conduit in plundering the nation’s coffers.”
In a 16-page, 70-evidence complaint the KMP accused Aquino of using the Malampaya Funds for projects that violate a law that a former president has passed.
KMP said that Aquino violated Presidential Decree 910, a law that the late president Ferdinand Marcos passed that would make all energy-related funds to be used solely for power and energy.
“The President and the respondent public officials of the DBM should know and should have known that the Malampaya Funds were earmarked for energy development or energy-related projects,” KMP said in the complaint.
According to the group, bogus NGOs that received the P125-million fund from Malampaya were under the watch of Luy and John Raymond De Asis, the alleged driver-bodyguard of Napoles.
“The projects that the DAR entered with the NGOs… are not in any way related to energy-development,” the group said in their complaint.
“Worst, those projects were never implemented. Not a single centavo was spent for the said projects and not a single farmer received any benefit.”
Abad, together with his Undersecretary Mario Relampagos, were also charged as “principals by indispensable cooperation” since the two approved the release of funds to the DAR which would be used for projects unrelated to energy-development.
The KMP added that the proponents on the complaint used the predicament of farmers as “justification for the release of public funds they have squandered.”
reported by INQ
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