Palace travel expenses, rewards up this year–COA

Expenses for foreign travel by the President and for awards to policemen increased in the first six months of the Duterte administration, according to a report of the Commission on Audit (COA) for 2016.

The reasons, however, are obvious—President Duterte traveled to more countries in the first few months of his term and gave rewards to more policemen.

In its annual audit report for that year, the COA said expenses by the Office of the President (OP) for foreign travel was up by at least 187 percent from P128.8 million in 2015 to P369.6 million in 2016.

The amount of funds spent by the OP in 2016 for maintenance and other operating expenses, or MOOE, was also higher than what was spent by the OP on MOOE in 2014, the year that COA started providing a breakdown of the OP’s MOOE expenses.

The increase in foreign travel expenses, read the COA report, “was due to foreign travels of the President to Malaysia, Vietnam and China.”

Expenses for the President’s local travel, however, declined to P27 million in 2016 from P56 million in 2015.

In his first six months in office, Mr. Duterte traveled to a total of 10 countries—Laos (Sept. 5-8), Indonesia (Sept. 8-9), Vietnam (Sept. 28-29), Brunei (Oct. 16-18), China (Oct. 18-21), Japan (Oct. 25-27), Malaysia (Nov. 9-10), Peru (Nov. 19-20), Cambodia (Dec. 13-14) and Singapore (Dec. 15-16).

The same COA report said expenses listed as “awards/rewards and prizes” increased to P6.8 million compared to P110,000 in 2015 and P140,000 in 2014.

It meant more funds were spent for rewards given to the men and women of the Philippine National Police “due to meritorious and invaluable services” in the first six months of the Duterte administration.

The COA report did not provide a detailed list of how the funds for PNP rewards were spent.

According to the COA report, spending by the OP on MOOE fell by 69 percent from P7.2 billion that the OP spent when the Philippines hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in 2015 to P2.2 billion in 2016.

But the COA report noted that the MOOE expenses of the OP in 2016 was higher than the P1.3 billion spent in 2014.