Party-list group seeks probe of PCGG operations
MANILA, Philippines—A party-list lawmaker is seeking a congressional probe into the purported “irregular and anomalous operations” of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG).
“Is the PCGG still up to its mandate?” Abakada Rep. Jonathan De la Cruz asked in an explanatory note to House Resolution 1599 directing the House committees on good government and public accountability, and justice, to investigate the agency.
Abakada Rep. Jonathan Dela Cruz. PHOTO from congress.gov.ph
The congressman said the PCGG had shown a “less than exemplary record” in the implementation of its mandate, as evidenced by charges lodged against its officials and agents by various parties for “unlawful, abusive and unprofessional acts.”
These, he said, included assets and funds not getting accounted for and the unwarranted disposition of assets instead of their proper recovery and enhancement.
The PCGG was set up in 1986 after the Edsa revolution to recover the alleged ill-gotten wealth of ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his cronies, the proceeds of which were principally meant to support the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.
But De la Cruz said the PCGG’s performance had been unsatisfactory.
He cited allegations involving its “negligence in the accounting of monies spent for its recovery operations in various jurisdictions including but not limited to payments made to lawyers, accountants and other ‘consultants’ in Switzerland, the United States and Singapore, among others.”
De la Cruz said the PCGG has been under fire from its own partners in the recovery effort, the latest from a certain Robert Swift who claimed to represent human-rights abuse victims during the martial law years.
According to the lawmaker, Swift assailed the PCGG for “grandstanding” in its “precipitate and irregular action” of claiming a number of paintings it alleged to be in the possession of former First Lady and now Ilocos Norte Rep. Imelda Romualdez Marcos, which he asserted were never government property.
“Mr. Swift intimated that the PCGG has in fact lost any claim to the said paintings, if at all, as it never ‘filed any case for forfeiture of the said items’,” De la Cruz added.
De la Cruz’s resolution also cited an advice aired by PCGG chair Andres Bautista that the agency should already wind down its activities and turn over its functions to other institutions chartered by law to do essentially the “ad hoc” functions it has been undertaking for more than two decades.
“It is now necessary to bring the agency and its officials to task to stem the rising claims of irregular and anomalous undertakings to ensure that its original mandate is carried out and its operations cleaned up in preparation for the turn over of its function to other agencies as contemplated earlier,” he said.
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