Nabcor a good office gone bad, says Baligod

By: Bong Lozada - 11 years ago

Lawyer Levito Baligod. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—It was a good office, yet it went the wrong path.

After reports of “systematic” plunder schemes inside the National Agribusiness Corporation (Nabcor) surfaced, one lawyer said that the office’s otherwise good vision was immediately put under the grasps of mismanaging officials.

In an interview with INQUIRER Radio 990AM Wednesday, Atty. Levito Baligod said that Nabcor could have been one good agency if not for the corrupt officials inside its halls.

“Nabcor’s mandate is very promising, there are very good programs,” Baligod said. “The only flaw was the implementation of the programs, the officials themselves sabotaged the office.”

Nabcor is now in the middle of the crosshairs of future investigations after nearly P5 billion worth of Priority Development Assistance Fund (Pdaf) were allegedly coursed through the corporation to the pockets of politicians and other personalities.

Baligod said that some P9.7 million were supposed to fund technical studies for the research of rice, vegetable, poultry, processed food that went straight to Nabcor’s bosses in 2009.

“What’s sad about that is, the technical studies that non-government organizations were supposed to conduct were conducted by Nabcor employees,” Baligod said. “And the technical studies were just copy-pasted from the Internet.”