Mayors deny receiving aid from DA: We were used

Former representative Carmelo Lazatin Jr. https://www.congress.gov.ph

CEBU CITY—Former Mayor Carina Flores of Oton town, Iloilo province, was listed as one of 44 mayors each of whom supposedly asked for P5 million from the Agricultural Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (Acef) through letters to former Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap from 2006 to 2007.

The list of local officials whose supposed requests for funds from Acef were facilitated by businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles showed that Flores wrote to Yap on Nov. 13, 2007, asking for P5 million.

But Flores said she could not have written to Yap on that date because her third and last term ended on June 30, 2007.

“If that letter was dated Nov. 13, 2007, obviously I didn’t sign it because I was no longer the mayor then,” said Flores, now municipal administrator of Oton.

Flores remembered endorsing a request for a P5-million grant from Acef made by a cooperative in Iloilo during her second term, 2001 to 2004, but she said the request was turned down for failure to meet a requirement.

She denied coursing her endorsement through Napoles, the alleged mastermind behind a network of bogus nongovernment organizations (NGOs) that bilked the government of P10 billion from legislators’ pork-barrel allocations over the last 10 years.

Fertilizer scam

It appears that the network, through Napoles’ supposed extensive connections in the government, also gained access to the Department of Agriculture, which administered the Acef in support of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s rice production program.

The Acef funded rice farmers’ fertilizer and equipment needs, which became the cover for the P728-million fertilizer scam of 2004 allegedly orchestrated by then Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-Joc” Bolante, now under trial in the Sandiganbayan for the racket.

Napoles had been linked to the fertilizer scam, but no charges were brought against her because of lack of evidence.

But the National Bureau of Investigation is investigating her activities in connection with the pork scam, diversion of the Malampaya gas fund, and malversation of Acef funds.

Flores recalled that the request for funding she had endorsed came from Southern Iloilo Area Marketing Cooperative Federation (Siamcf) headed by Felix Borja. She said Borja asked her to endorse the request for funds of the cooperative, which needed P5 million to buy equipment from Germany that would be used for an organic fertilizer project.

Proper channels

Flores said Siamcf’s request went through the “proper channels,” that is, to the chief of the Senate’s committee on agriculture, a position held at different times by Senators Edgardo Angara, Manuel Villar, and Ramon Magsaysay Jr. during her time in office.

But never did she or Siamcf seek help from Napoles, who she said she had never met. She said she heard about Napoles only through the Inquirer’s series of reports on the pork barrel scam.

Siamcf did not receive funding from Acef for its failure to submit a sample of the organic fertilizer it had proposed to produce.

Producing a sample of the fertilizer would take six months. Meanwhile, Flores’ term ended.

Flores said her letter of endorsement may have been resubmitted in November 2007, but definitely not by her because she was no longer mayor of Oton at the time.

No help from Napoles

Some of the other mayors on the list admitted that they had asked for funds from the agriculture department, but all said they never sought Napoles for assistance and they never received money from the fertilizer fund.

Former Mayor Sonia Lorenzo of San Isidro town, Nueva Ecija province, admitted having sent out letters of request for funds to finance several social development projects of her municipality and one of the agencies she had asked for help was Agriculture Secretary Yap’s.

“It was usual for mayors to consider all offers to help since we needed the funds,” Lorenzo told the Inquirer in a phone interview on Saturday.

She said the town and cooperatives sent several letters of request to the agriculture department, but despite the repeated request, San Isidro received no funds.

“We were frustrated,” Lorenzo said, adding that the funds that the town did get came from multilateral lending agencies such as the Asian Development Bank and the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

Lorenzo said that for towns like hers to access funds, they had to work closely with the governor, the district representative, and even senators because it was those officials who had a say on where funds would go.

“Farm-to-market roads, for example, had to go through the congressman who would make a request with the [Department of Agriculture] or the Department of Public Works and Highways for funds,” she said.

Mayor Ferdinand Abesamis of Peñaranda town, also in Nueva Ecija, said the municipality did not have a copy of a supposed letter of request for funds from the agriculture department allegedly signed by former Mayor Felix Corpuz, whose name appears on the list.

Direct line to Yap

In Pampanga province, former Rep. Carmelo Lazatin Jr. said he never asked Napoles to help him get funding assistance from the agriculture department to finance his projects when he was mayor of Angeles City.

But the list showed that he wrote to Yap on Nov. 7, 2007, asking for assistance.

Lazatin acknowledged that he did write Yap, but stressed that he did not write to ask for funds, as he had a direct line to Yap at the time, he and Yap being political allies of Arroyo.

He also said that he did not need the help of NGOs because he had coordinators working on his city’s projects.

Former Mayor Teresita Vistan of Plaridel town, Bulacan province, said an NGO had asked her to endorse its request for agricultural funds.

“I did (make the endorsement), but the municipality never received money after that,” Vistan said. “We were used.”

Vistan’s term ended on June 30. She was succeeded by her daughter, Jocell Vistan.

Forged signature

Another former mayor whose name appears on the list is Atanacio Dayrit Jr., who headed the town of Cabatuan, Isabela province, from 2004 to 2010.

“No funds went to the town, not even a single centavo,” Dayrit said when told that his name was on the list.

He said he had been asked to account for agricultural funds coursed through an NGO before the elections on May 13. He said he asked his lawyer, Gilbert Bautista, to attend to the audit because he was taking care of his ailing wife, former Mayor Alma Dayrit, who later died.

“While browsing through the documents sent to us, I found out that my signature had been forged,” Dayrit said.

But he could not recall the name of the NGO that supposedly processed his alleged request for funds from the agriculture department.

Dayrit said municipal employees checked for him and confirmed that Cabatuan never received funds from the agriculture department.

The name of former Mayor Fernando Cumigad of Gamu town, also in Isabela, also appears on the list. But Cumigad, now the town’s vice mayor, could not be reached for comment on Saturday.—With reports from Tina Arceo-Dumlao in Manila; Tonette Orejas and Armand Galang, Inquirer Central Luzon; and Villamor Visaya Jr., Inquirer Northern Luzon

First posted 9:05 pm | Saturday, August 3rd, 2013