ARMM ex-education chief defends last-minute release of P77.5 M

COTABATO CITY, Philippines—The former secretary of the Department of Education in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said his last-minute order for the release of P77.5 million in public funds was not irregular.

Baratucal Caudang, who resigned in December following the assumption to office of ARMM Acting Governor  Mujiv Hataman, said the release had to be done because the funds would be reverted to the national treasury if he had not done so.

“There is no irregularity here,” he said.

An audit team commissioned by Hataman to review the finances of the ARMM  discovered the “midnight attempt” to release the funds from the regional education department 2011 maintenance and other operating expenditures (MOOE).

“Why the release in December when this was supposed to have been disbursed in January? That’s why we want to look deeper into this questionable release,” Hataman said.

Caudang said that the money should have been disbursed earlier but it was delayed by erroneous data.

Although he did not specify what the errors were, Caudang said the data had just been rectified, which prompted him to order the release of the money.

“To give justice to public fund disbursement we have to come up with accurate data on the basis of per capita and this was upheld by the holding of a nationwide enhanced data gathering system that would benefit not only secondary but elementary schools as well,” Caudang said.

“We have nothing to hide,” he added.

As to why nearly 20,000 teachers have not been paid their salaries, Caudang blamed an alleged shortage of checks.

He showed to reporters photocopies of his July 13 letter to Abdulkadil Alabat, manager of the Land Bank of the Philippines here, requesting 100,000 pieces of “continuous form checks under Account No. 0372-1085-17.”

Only about 80,000 had been issued since, thus some 19,000 teachers have yet to get their paychecks, Caudang said.

Meanwhile, Hataman said the audit team he formed when he took over the leadership of the five-province region also uncovered some transactions at the ARMM’s Department of Public Works and Highways that appeared to be irregular.

He said the audit team was gathering more documents on these.