Quezon mayor says Senator Marcos’ pork benefited his town
LUCENA CITY, Philippines—Mayor Leovegildo Ruzol of General Nakar town, Quezon province, on Friday maintained that his town’s farmers had benefited from the P10-million livelihood project from Sen. Bongbong Marcos’ Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) in 2012.
Asked to name the villages and the number of farmers who benefited from the supposed livelihood project, Ruzol said he could not exactly remember the information. He said the municipal agriculturist at that time had retired a few months ago and that his replacement was still collating all pertinent documents on the project.
“The project helped our farmers in improving their harvests, not only in one season but also in several that followed,” Ruzol said in a phone interview, adding that they have the records to prove that the implementation of the project was in order and aboveboard.
Ruzol said the budget for the project went directly to Social Development Program for Farmers Foundation Inc. (SDPFFI), the recommended nongovernment organization (NGO) assigned to implement the project, instead of passing through the local treasury.
SDPFFI is one of the bogus foundations linked to businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, who had been charged with plunder and graft for allegedly conspiring with Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Bong Revilla and Jinggoy Estrada to embezzle P1.7 billion of their PDAF allocations from 2004 to 2010.
‘Illegal and irregular’
The Commission on Audit (COA) had disapproved for being “illegal and irregular” the P10-million funding from Marcos’ PDAF that was allotted to General Nakar as there were questions on SDPFFI’s legality. On paper, the Napoles-linked foundation was headed by Benhur Luy, a former Napoles aide and now a state witness on the pork scandal.
Senator Marcos on Friday scoffed at the COA’s notice of disallowance and its directive for him to return some P10 million funneled to the foundation for its organic farming project in Quezon.
“Definitely, this is devoid of any factual and legal basis,” he said in a statement, as he vowed to appeal the COA notice.
Apart from Marcos, also asked to settle the COA disallowance were Luy (for receiving the fund); Ruzol (for approving the release of funds to SDPFFI without validating the foundation’s capability to undertake the project); Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Director IV Julian Li Pacificador Jr. (for issuing the special allotment release order or Saro and notice of cash allocation without following the budget release guidelines); Nakar municipal accountant Orlando P. Ungriano (for certifying that the expenses were fully documented), and TNU Trading proprietor Nathaniel U. Tan. TNU is believed to be owned by Napoles.
Notice of disallowance
Marcos said he was surprised that the COA had included him in the notice of disallowance as he merely approved Ruzol’s request to fund livelihood projects for poor farmers.
After receiving a request for financial assistance in 2011 from the municipality, Marcos said he requested the mayor to tap the services of the foundation as a coimplementor of the projects.
“Whenever I endorse a request for financial assistance, I always remind the implementing agency that the release of the funds under my PDAF allocation … should be in accordance with existing government rules and regulations,” he said.
Auditors Romeo B. Limara and Wilhelmina R. Cabuhat said the transaction disregarded laws and regulations since the foundation undertook the project despite the absence of any appropriation law and procured farm inputs without competitive bidding.
But Marcos said he “could not have caused the disbursement of the funds since, as a senator, I do not have the power to do so. Neither did I at any point have custody of or control of the PDAF funds.”
Under the law, it is the DBM that is mandated to release funds to recipient agencies, in this case the Nakar municipality through the Saro, Marcos said. He said that on June 4, 2012, the DBM issued Saro No. BMB-G-12-T00002502 to the identified implementing agency, the municipality of General Nakar.
On December 2013, Ruzol was linked to other pork barrel scams after General Nakar was identified as one of 10 towns that allegedly benefited from P70 million worth of projects by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) that were endorsed by Senator Estrada in 2011.
But the mayor had denied receiving funds from Estrada’s organic farming livelihood projects and said he knew nothing of the supposed funding assistance from the DAR or from the senator.
On June 30, a notice of disallowance was issued by a COA audit team to Ruzol ordering the return of Marcos’ P10 million.
The mayor said they intended to appeal COA’s decision and would immediately submit all the documents needed to support their position that the project was legal.
Another bogus NGO
Ruzol said the documents included the authority from the Sangguniang Bayan, the recommendation of the bids and awards committee (BAC), and the distribution and delivery photos related to the controversial project.
The mayor said he recalled receiving sometime in 2012 a notice from the DBM about the availability of a P10-million fund from Marcos’ PDAF and the recommendation that SDPFFI would implement the project called “organic farming for high-value crops.”
“I was happy when I received the DBM notice. I [had] no idea it [would] create problems,” Ruzol said.
Soon after he got the DBM notice, the mayor said SDPFFI representatives came and started training employees from the local agriculture office.
“They came here often for the documents for the BAC and for accounting,” Ruzol said, adding that the beneficiaries also received farm supplements like organic fertilizer, soil conditioner and sprayers.
He said no representative from Senator Marcos’ office had visited the town during the project’s implementation.
People’s Organization for Progress and Development Foundation Inc., another bogus foundation linked to Napoles, allegedly took charge of the project in General Nakar.
RELATED STORY
COA tells Bongbong Marcos: Return P10M pork
