{"id":49139,"date":"2015-05-12T23:46:23","date_gmt":"2015-05-12T15:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=49139"},"modified":"2015-05-12T23:46:23","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T15:46:23","slug":"coa-questions-lawmakers-p670-m-funds-given-to-ngos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/05\/12\/coa-questions-lawmakers-p670-m-funds-given-to-ngos\/","title":{"rendered":"COA questions lawmakers\u2019 P670-M funds given to \u2018NGOs\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Commission<\/a>
Commission on Audit (Photo from snipview.ph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA \u2013 According to a report by the Commission on Audit (COA), Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Gregorio Honasan II and 47 other Congress representatives have allegedly squandered P670 million funds supposedly meant for Muslim Filipinos but were transferred to questionable nongovernment organizations instead.<\/p>\n

The COA disclosed that the funds were taken from the lawmakers\u2019 Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP). Both programs were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

The National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF), an agency founded for the benefit and culture preservation of Muslim Filipinos, was the supposed receiver of the released budget. It had, however, allowed the funds to be transferred to dubious nongovernment organizations.<\/p>\n

The senators and representatives themselves chose the various nongovernment organizations that became beneficiaries of the released funds. But according to the COA, the selection of beneficiaries should have been done by the NCMF. The agency also had incomplete documents of the grants and no liquidation of the budget allotted to them.<\/p>\n

The NCMF, for their part, explained that they allowed the lawmakers to choose the beneficiaries as this was the \u2018common practice\u2019 in other government agencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is incorrect to say that the NCMF allowed the legislators to impose their chosen NGOs without the checking the eligibility of these NGOs,\u201d the COA said.<\/p>\n

The NCMF, however, asserted that they imposed a 15-point accreditation process to ensure that the selected nongovernment organizations were fitting beneficiaries.<\/p>\n

The questionable foundations were allegedly funded by Honasan and Enrile with P30 million and P25 million, respectively.<\/p>\n

Enrile, together with Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla, had been previously tagged in Napoles\u2019 multi-billion pork barrel scam. The senators are\u00a0currently detained while their cases are still being heard.<\/p>\n

Former Deputy Speaker Lorenzo Ta\u00f1ada, one of the 47 representatives, stressed that his programs were implemented. To his defense, he claimed that his projects were not \u2018ghost projects.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can check with the NCMF with regard to their implementation,\u201d Ta\u00f1ada said.<\/p>\n

The questionable nongovernment organizations who received funding were Kaagapay Magpakailanman Foundation Inc., Rich Islas de Filipinas Foundation Inc., Maharlikang Lipi Foundation, Kapuso\u2019t Kapamilya Foundation Inc., Kagandahan ng Kapaligiran Foundation Inc., Kabuhayan at Kalusugan Alay sa Masa Foundation Inc., Livedures Foundation Inc., Coprahan at Gulayan Foundation Inc., and BL Personal Touch Foundation Inc., among others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA \u2013 According to a report by the Commission on Audit (COA), Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Gregorio Honasan II and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":41995,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,95,483,4377],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ph","category-politics","category-public-probe","mauthors-jane-moraleda","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}