Pet projects of Drilon got P650M

Senate President Franklin Drilon: Money spend properly. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

ILOILO CITY—Pet projects of Senate President Franklin Drilon received some of the biggest slices of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) pie, getting at least P650 million in DAP funds from the Aquino administration.

Drilon, though, acknowledged only one project—a convention center in Iloilo City–that received P100 million in DAP funds.

Two other projects that have Drilon as the main proponent received P550 million in DAP funds. These are the Jalaur River Multipurpose Project 2 (P450 million) and a relocation project for informal settlers in Iloilo City (P100 million).

Records showed that DAP funds for the Jalaur dam passed through

the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) and those for the relocation project passed through the National Housing Authority (NHA). Drilon is the main proponent of both but his name does not appear on records of fund disbursement for the projects.

During a Senate hearing on the DAP on Thursday, Drilon defended the program, saying it was wrong to associate it with wrongdoing despite a Supreme Court decision that ruled the DAP as unconstitutional.

The Iloilo City convention center is being built to support the city’s bid to host the ministerial meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, an annual conference of developed and developing countries where no binding agreements are made.

The Jalaur dam is facing protests from militant and environmental groups claiming that the project would displace hundreds of families and indigenous peoples from their homes, and obliterate areas that are home to different flora and fauna species.

The militant farmers’ group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said the timing of the release of funds for the Jalaur dam was suspect.

KMP said the agreement between the Philippine government and Export-Import Bank of Korea, which would finance the Jalaur dam with counterpart funds from the Philippines, was signed only on Aug. 9, 2012.

The project, KMP said, “did not exist in the 2011 General Appropriations Act (national budget).”

But on Dec. 21, 2011, or at least seven months before the loan agreement was signed, President Aquino approved the release of P450 million in DAP funds for the Jalaur dam. The move “smacks of plunder,” KMP secretary general Antonio Flores said in a statement.

The counterpart funding required from the Philippine government for the Jalaur project is at least P2 billion.

The target completion date for the dam is 2016. Its components include a reservoir, catch dams, a 6.6-megawatt hydropower plant and an 81-kilometer canal. The total cost of the project exceeds P11 billion.

Drilon has consistently defended the Jalaur project, insisting that it would help farmers, generate jobs and ease Iloilo province’s water and power supply problems.

Project critics also pointed to the project’s proximity (11 km) to the active West Panay Fault. NIA officials, however, said the dam was designed to withstand an Intensity 9 quake.

The project also ran into legal trouble when the Supreme Court issued a writ of kalikasan on Oct. 31 last year that effectively suspended work on the Jalaur dam and ordered the NIA and other government officials to answer petitions that seek to stop it, which were filed in the Court of Appeals.

The NIA is trying to secure support for the project from the Tumandok, a group of indigenous peoples that would be displaced by the dam.

The other pet project of Drilon that received DAP funds is the relocation of informal settlers along Iloilo River to a site in Jaro District. The project cost P100 million and funds passed through the NHA, the implementing agency.