Senate Pro Tempore Ralph Recto. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines – To avoid abuses in the use of Malampaya gas funds, Senate Pro Tempore Ralph Recto on Thursday sought to amend the law that created it.
Recto made the proposal even after National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon’s assurance that the balance of the Malampaya funds amounting to P137.288 billion was “perfectly intact” in the National Treasury contrary to the former ’s claim it was gone.
But if the funds were indeed intact, then “why are we not spending it?” Recto asked. “Don’t we have a mechanism like disbursement acceleration program , etc.?”
“What I’m saying is this: Malampaya collections are very large and will get larger. There are many questions on its abuses,” he said in a statement.
“Better we amend the PD (Presidential Decree) now and decide the best way to utilize these resources to benefit our people and institutionalize its proper use so that whoever becomes the president cannot abuse it,” he added.
The PD he referred to was the Presidential Decree 910, which created the Special Fund to finance energy resource development and exploitation programs and projects of the government and “for such other purposes as may be hereafter directed by the President.”
Recto’s office also furnished reporters copies of Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad’s letter to his office when he was still chairman of the Senate committee on ways and means.
In the letter dated July 05, 2011, Abad himself said that there was no cash “sitting in any bank and ready to be used by the government at any time.”
Abad explained that the P79.48 billion Malampaya fund balance as of May 2011 was not “actual cash but an accounting of revenue inflows and expenditure items charged against the fund…”
“In other words, there’s no P79.48 billion in cash sitting in any bank and ready to be used by the government at any time,’ the Budget chief added.