Senate committee eyes probe into use of Malampaya funds

MANILA, Philippines–The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee is training its sights on the alleged misuse of the Malampaya Fund after a series of hearings on the pork barrel scam.

Committee chair Teofisto Guingona III said that alleged mastermind behind the pork barrel scam, businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles, cannot rest easy yet because some of her NGOs were also implicated in the alleged misuse of the government’s share of the proceeds from the Malampaya natural gas field off Palawan.

“We will be moving to the Malampaya hearings because the NGOs of Janet Lim Napoles are also involved,’’ Guingona told reporters after Thursday’s hearing on the pork barrel scandal.

Guingona said, however, that it was premature to say if the committee would invite Napoles to the Malampaya Fund hearings.

The Department of Budget and Management cleared the release of P900 million from the Malampaya Fund in December 2009 for assistance to agrarian reform beneficiaries affected by tropical storms “Ondoy’’ and “Pepeng.’’

Prior to this, then Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman authorized the release of P300 million from Land Bank of the Philippines to 12 NGOs controlled by Napoles, government documents showed.

A plunder complaint was filed against former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, Pangandaman and his undersecretary, Narciso Nieto, Budget Secretary and now Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr., his undersecretary Mario Relampagos, and 19 others in connection with this.

Napoles also faces the same complaint, and a separate plunder complaint in connection with the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

Begun in 2002, the Malampaya project involves the extraction of natural gas from the bottom of the sea off Palawan. The government collects royalties and taxes from the project.

The outstanding P136-billion balance from the fund is lodged in a special account in the general fund, Treasury officials said.

After the probe into the Malampaya fund misuse, Guingona said that the committee would look into the role of more than 70 other NGOs not linked to Napoles that became recipients of pork barrel funds.

“After that, we will also go to the other NGOs,’’ he said, assuring colleagues that he wasn’t wrapping up the pork barrel hearing yet.

State auditors reported that from 2007 to 2009 some P6.2 billion from the Priority Development Assistance Fund of legislators was illegally funneled to 82 NGOs, including eight with ties to Napoles.

Chair Grace Pulido-Tan of the Commission on Audit said some of the 82 NGOs had simply failed to submit certain documents and were not necessarily involved in fraudulent transactions.