Pampanga fishers see Malampaya fund mess

MASANTOL, Pampanga—Several fishermen here, who were among the 2,494 residents who got letters from the Commission on Audit’s special audits office (SAO), have denied receiving in 2009 agricultural kits worth P35,781 each from the government’s share of royalties from the Malampaya gas project in Palawan.

The total amount of the kits supposedly distributed here is P89.2 million.

Arnel Cunanan, 49, said his signature on the list sent by the SAO was falsified. “On top of not receiving or getting anything, I am not qualified to be a beneficiary because I don’t own a piece of land,” he said.

Cunanan said he works as a fishpond caretaker in his village, Bagang, which is less than 10 kilometers from the mouth of Manila Bay.

He is No. 174 in the SAO list that is attached to the July 13 letter of SAO Director Susan Garcia.

Cunanan and his supposed fellow recipients alerted the Inquirer about the letters only on Friday when they recovered the things they kept in an evacuation center during 6-foot high floods in August.

“We suspect this is a scam made at our expense. We appeal to the COA to erase our names on the list because we have no accountability whatsoever. We did not get anything or signed anything,” said Teody Salarda, former council member of Bagang.

Through the letter, Garcia informed the alleged recipients that the SAO is “conducting a sectoral performance audit on the receipt and utilization of Malampaya Funds during CYs 2002-2011.”

She said the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) was one of the agencies covered by the audit.

“Records of DAR disclosed that in December 2009, certain amounts were transferred to Kaupdanan para sa Mangunguma Foundation Inc. (KMFI) for the Farming Yield Emergency Contingency Project,” Garcia said.

Efforts to find contacts to KMFI failed.

Asked about COA’s special audit on Malampaya funds, Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes said: “I heard about it.” He said he was checking the background of KMFI.

Garcia said: “Among the documents submitted by KMFI to liquidate such funds is a list of beneficiaries, copy attached, with you as one of the recipients of one agricultural input package consisting of heavy duty sprayer, organized container, [agricultural] paraphernalia, gloves, various seeds and seedlings with each package costing P35,781.”

The letter came with a reply form and self-stamped envelope, which they have not used yet.

George Viray, also listed as a recipient, said he was shocked that his brother Eugenio was included in the list when the latter could not even read or write.

He said Bagang village chief Jesus Velasquez had not met with KMFI or supplied them a list of beneficiaries. Viray said he was surprised that his son, Lou, was in the list.

Former Vice Mayor Marcelo Lacap said many residents from Masantol’s 26 villages had him asked to remove their names from the list.

The COA 2010 report showed that from 2002 to 2010, P23.601 billion of the Malampaya funds were released to various government agencies and to the province of Palawan, an Inquirer story in 2011 showed.

National government agencies received P19.643 billion, and only 1.27 percent of this went to the Department of Energy for the electrification of 211 villages.

The remaining 98.73 percent, or P19.39 billion, was used for various projects other than exploration, development and exploitation of energy resources.