Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile questioned the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) for their alleged “failure or refusal to cooperate” with the Commission on Audit’s (COA) special audit of lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) releases from 2007-2009.
“The COA was only able to trace or audit P46.727 billion or 40 percent because of the DBM’s failure or refusal to cooperate with the audit,” Enrile said in a press conference Friday.
He cited the executive summary of COA’s previously released special report which said “the DBM could not provide the [Audit] team, despite repeated requests, with complete schedule of releases per legislator for soft projects and hard projects.”
“From the data gathered by the team … such schedule excluded around P69.261 billion … the concerned legislators of such releases cannot be identified,” Enrile said citing the report.
He urged former DBM secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. to explain its failure to cooperate with the COA special audit.
“The DBM, especially under former secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. under the previous administration which released these funds … must explain why it kept and continues to keep the COA and the public in the dark regarding this almost P70 billion in legislators infrastructure project,” he said.
“Was the DBM protecting some ‘sacred cows’ or hiding the identity of the legislators concerned as well as its own negligence, incompetence, if not complicity and participation,” Enrile said.
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