World Bank confirms report on Supreme Court expenses

The World Bank Manila officer on Tuesday confirmed that it had written an “aide memoire” to the Philippine government raising “implementation issues” in its $21.9-million Judicial Reform Support Project (JRSP), including some “ineligible expenditures” incurred by the loan beneficiary, the Supreme Court.

In a press statement, the World Bank described the aide memoire as a “project-monitoring and management tool” which it uses to review findings and recommendations of its projects.

“Through the aide memoire, the bank informs the appropriate country authorities and works with them to address implementation issues,” the multilateral lending agency said.

“Given the deliberative nature of information, the aide memoire is usually not disclosed to the public,” it said.

Leaked to media

However, a few days ago, a supposed copy of the aide memoire was e-mailed to several members of the media, which highlighted criticism of the Supreme Court’s implementation of the program.

The source of the document, circulated among several journalists and media organizations, was a free e-mail account named [email protected], which is not an official account of the Washington, D.C.-based bank.

In its statement, the World Bank stressed that “all official statements and media releases, reports and public documents about the JRSP are posted on the World Bank’s website, www.worldbank.org.ph.”

The World Bank said that it conducted a review of the JRSP’s implementation between Oct. 24 and Nov. 12, 2011, where it discussed the preliminary findings and recommendations with the implementing agency, the Supreme Court.

“On Dec. 28, 2011, it submitted the aide memoire to the implementing agency and copied oversight agencies, in accordance with the regular procedures,” it said.

“The aide memoire summarized the findings and recommendations of the mission, pointing out implementation issues that included some ineligible expenditure,” it said.

The project is scheduled to close on June 30, 2012 and the focus for the remaining period is to bring the project to a closure, the statement added.

World Bank officials have so far refused to confirm whether the aide memoire they gave Philippine government representatives is the same as the one being circulated to members of the media.

However, Malacañang on Tuesday took it upon itself to say that the version of the aide memoire that came out in the media was “genuine” and that it wanted to “settle all doubts’’ on the authenticity of the report by making a clarification.

Claiming to have checked with Malacañang officials who received copies of the aide memoire from the World Bank, presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said the published report and the aide memoire furnished the officials were identical.

“The version uploaded by a media outfit online, and theirs, are a match,’’ said Lacierda, adding that 10 officials from the Executive Branch were provided a copy of the aide memoire by the World Bank.

“It seems that what the World Bank has done is to clarify that it did not release the report to the media, but a careful reading of its statement shows that they did not deny the authenticity of the report itself,” he said.

Lacierda said the Palace wanted the report to “officially come out” whether in a congressional probe or in the ongoing impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona.

“It can either be in the House, it can either be in the Senate or it can even be raised in the impeachment court as some of the prosecutors are intending to do….what we want is for the WB report to officially come out,” he said.

Only the other day, President Benigno Aquino III said he was able to read the WB aide memoire and said it was “additional proof” that he was right in his call for reforms in the judiciary. With Christine Avendaño

Originally posted: 5:32 pm | Tuesday, January 17th, 2012