Cayetano denies authorizing release of P10-M funds to DOST

Senator Pia Cayetano INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

MANILA, Philippines—Senator Pia  Cayetano on Tuesday denied authorizing  the release of P10 million  funds  to the  Department  of Science and Technology  (DOST) through the  controversial   Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).

“I did not request nor did I authorize the release of funds under the DAP  scheme to the Department of Science and Technology,” Cayetano said in a statement  she issued  from Geneva,   where she is currently attending  the 129^th assembly of the  Inter-Parliamentary Union.

This was contrary, she said,  to DOST Secretary Mario Montejo’s claim  that she allotted P10 million to the agency through the DAP.

“I don’t even know that term,”   she said of the DAP. “What I do know is that I proposed amendments in the amount of P10 million to the DOST budget under the 2012 General Appropriations Bill.”

Cayetano said her proposed amendments were coursed through then Senate finance committee chairman and now Senate President Franklin Drilon in a letter dated November 22, 2011.

“In fact, we submitted in writing the breakdown of the P10 million as follows: P2 million for training and scholarships; P1 million for the purchase of Starbooks facilities under the Science and Technology Information Institute; and P7 million for financial assistance for Research and Development,” she said.

“I proposed these amendments to support various DOST programs in line with my belief that we need to continuously innovate and invest in Science and Technology in order for our country to be more competitive and progressive,”  she pointed out.

But the senator found out sometime in February 2012 that the DOST had realigned  the P10 million  fund to the ‘Malnutrition Reduction Program’ of the agency’s Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI).

Cayetano said she then tried to seek clarification from the DOST and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) “in order to revert the funds to their original intention as the realignment was undertaken without my knowledge or prior approval.”

She said  the DBM, in a letter dated March 12, 2012,  confirmed that it was the DOST’s decision to realign the P10 million under DAP for Fiscal Year 2011.

“Thus, I could not have possibly authorized nor realigned funds through DAP, a funding entity whose mechanisms were unknown to me until it became the subject of controversy in recent news,” Cayetano further said.