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 129th 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.