Gov’t agencies transferred around P50B funds to PITC from 2014-2020

Photo from Philippine International Trading Corporation – PITC Facebook page

MANILA, Philippines — Various government agencies have transferred around P50.7 billion to the Philippine International Trading Corporation (PITC), which has been questioned for being a “parking lot” of unused public funds, from 2014-2020.

During Monday’s budget hearing, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said that his research shows that P50,720,244,000 have been transferred to the PITC by different government offices over the six-year period.

Asked if the figures are accurate, the PITC officer-in-charge Christabelle Ebriega said Drilon’s numbers were more or less the amount transferred.

“We had a memorandum of agreement with all our client agencies,” Ebriega said.

According to Ebriega, P20 billion have been used to pay the suppliers for the contracts, P10.2 billion has been returned to the source agency or the Bureau of Treasury, and the remaining P20.23 billion serves as an outstanding balance as of September 30 this year.

Of the P20.23 billion outstanding balance, P15.28 billion are ongoing contract implementation, P1.47 billion are in the pre-implementation phase, P1.96 billion are for return due to savings or discontinued procurement, and P1.51 billion are ongoing procurement.

Based on the list shared by Ebriega to the Senate, the Philippine Army had the highest amount of fund transfers to the PITC from 2014-2020 at P13.4 billion, followed by the University of the Philippines System/Philippine General Hospital (P4.08 billion).

Other agencies on the list include the Department of Information and Communication Technology (P3.54 billion), the Bureau of Fire Protection (P3.39 billion), the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (P3.32 billion), and the Department of Health (P3.30 billion).

In the Senate, Senator Imee Marcos has filed separate measures seeking to abolish the Procurement Service-Department of  Budget and Management (PS-DBM) and the PITC to address the “systemic corruption” in the two agencies.

The PITC was recently linked to various procurement controversies, most notably the P11.02 billion funds transferred by various government agencies from 2014-2020 that remained unutilized as of December last year.

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