Palace hands off COA, senators row over pork

MANILA, Philippines—Malacañang is not in a position to compel Senators Ramon Revilla Jr., Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Gregorio Honasan to return their pork barrel allotments that were allegedly illegally diverted to bogus nongovernment organizations (NGOs).

Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

“We don’t have the power of compulsion. Knowing that the senators belong to a separate and coequal branch of government, we will not be initiating steps (to recover these),” said deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte.

The four senators were directly answerable to the Commission on Audit (COA), an independent constitutional body that issues notices of disallowance when it finds unlawful or irregular disbursements of funds by government officials and agencies, Valte said in an interview with the state-run Radyo ng Bayan.

“That doesn’t concern the Executive. This is a matter between the COA and the four senators that have been issued notices of disallowance,” she said.

Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma said much the same thing.

“We respect COA’s independence as a constitutional body, and we have no participation in this particular matter,” said Coloma in a phone interview.

COA Chair Grace Pulido-Tan on Thursday told a Senate hearing that the commission had notified Revilla, Enrile, Estrada and Honasan that they were liable for the millions of pesos in their pork barrel allotments, officially called the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), that found their way into the bogus NGOs, and that they have to return the money to the government.

Earlier, Tan said that the COA would be sending out notices of disallowance after a special audit showed that P6.2 billion in PDAF were illegally transferred from 2007 to 2009 to 82 NGOs, including at least eight that had links to detained businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged scam mastermind.

Among the sources of the illegally diverted pork funds were Revilla (P413.29 million), Enrile (P332.7 million), Estrada (P191.58 million) and Honasan (P14.55 million).

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