Estrada: COA chief liable for DAP ‘cover-up’ in past 3 years

By: Gil C. Cabacungan - 10 years ago

MANILA, Philippines—Who will audit the auditor?

Accused plunderer Senator Jinggoy Estrada said Commission on Audit Commissioner Grace Pulido-Tan should be made answerable for keeping the Disbursement Acceleration Program under wraps for the last three years.

Estrada and his fellow senators and representatives continue to swear they never knew the extra funds they got from 2011 to 2013 were from the economic stimulus fund program concocted by Budget Secretary Florencio Abad.

Commission on Audit chair Grace Pulido-Tan. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

“In my view, Grace Pulido Tan should be held accountable existence since the DAP has not been audited since 2011,” said Estrada after his bail hearing for plunder charges at the Sandiganbayan on Tuesday.

Estrada recalled that during a Senate hearing where Pulido-Tan was being grilled about the COA’s budget, the nominee for the vacant Supreme Court post confirmed that the COA received DAP funds but she “could not say anything when asked why this was not audited.”

“What did she use it for? She used it to buy cars not pump prime the economy,” said a gruff-looking Estrada who was all business in his short-sleeved, pink Barong Tagalog during his bail hearing. Estrada was accompanied by his wife, Precy; his parents, Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada and former Senator Loi; and his brother Jude.

In that same Senate hearing in November last year, Pulido-Tan bared that the COA was allotted P143 million after she made a request to Malacañang in 2011. While she admitted that part of the funds were used to buy a new vehicle for COA Commissioner Heidi Mendoza, the bulk of the funds were used to beef up its information technology department and tap outside legal experts.

Estrada has accused the Aquino administration, specifically the Department of Justice and COA, of singling-out opposition senators in the probe on the pork barrel scam and ignoring administration lawmakers embroiled in the scandal.

Like Pulido-Tan who claimed she was unaware that the funds COA received from Malacañang were from DAP, Estrada said that he too was not informed that the money he got on top of his P200 million annual allocation was from the illegal stimulus fund.

“I never knew where the funds came from as it was not included in the General Appropriations Act. Not even a single senator knew of the existence of DAP,” said Estrada.

The COA’s DAP-funded IT project was among the projects cited by the Supreme Court as having violated the constitutional prohibition on cross-border transfer of funds or moving funds from one branch of government to another.

Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) has likewise criticized Pulido-Tan for having no “sense of urgency” on the part of COA to check how the DAP funds were being spent. “With Malacañang and COA both abdicating their role of reporting and accounting for the illegal spending under DAP, an impeachment complaint becomes even more necessary to ferret out the truth. The refusal to disclose the details of the DAP also further strengthens the grounds for impeachment,” Bayan Muna Renato M. Reyes Jr. said.

“Both Malacanang and COA are engaged in a cover-up of DAP. As early as February 17, we had requested the COA for a special audit of DAP projects. We even provided them with documents. Yet the COA chair refused our request, and instead defended the DAP and pointed us to the regular audit of the departments,” Reyes added.