IF YOU could help decide how your taxes are spent, would you support government-funded classes in flower arrangement and make-up?
These were among the livelihood classes paid for with Priority Development Assistance Funds and Disbursement Acceleration Program resources, according to the continuing series of reports on the alleged misuse of these funds.
The latest report, in yesterday’s issue of the Inquirer, mentions three Cebuano lawmakers.
Quoting the Commission on Audit (COA), the report said that 49 lawmakers asked the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) to course P670.30 million from 2011 to 2013 to 21 non-government and people’s organizations (NGOs/POs).
These were supposed to pay for a wide range of livelihood projects and courses, from cultivating mushrooms and rubber trees, to making vinegar, organic fertilizers, candy, and providing massages.
Unfortunately, a COA team found out in 2014 that most of these NGOs and POs couldn’t even be located in the addresses they had given the commission. At least one NGO was only eight months old and lacked a proven track record when it received P3 million, reportedly upon the recommendation of Rep. Luigi Quisumbing, to teach handicrafts-making in the sixth district of Cebu Province.
Former congressman Eduardo Gullas, who reportedly recommended releasing P9 million to the Kabuhayan at Kalusugan Alay sa Masa Foundation, said yesterday that the projects were “legitimate, fully accounted for and undertaken by government-accredited NGOs.” (See story in today’s A21.)
The NCMF, according to the audit report, said it has disqualified NGOs that failed to submit required papers or “had a dismal implementation record.” It also assured that all but one of the NGOs “constantly communicated” with the commission.
State auditors, however, have recommended a more in-depth investigation.
NGOs and POs are necessary partners in the implementation of government projects. But the process of giving those funds, as well as the results they deliver, needs to be made more open to public scrutiny.
Otherwise, a lot of effective and honest NGOs will bear the fallout of the pork barrel scam: the steady erosion of the public’s trust, not only in government agencies, but civil society organizations as well.