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Don’t
look now, but the financial tsunami ravaging the US and
the global financial system may have unraveled hidden
conflicts within two critical agencies—the Government
Service Insurance System (GSIS) and Com mission on Audit
(COA)—which will definitely impact on their performance
as guardians of the people’s money.
Already,
the GSIS, which serves as the custodian of the
hard-earned pension and retirement benefits of
government employees, is under fire for its failure to
disclose the extent and state of its investments
overseas in the wake of this global financial shakeup.
On the
other hand, the COA is being brought to task for its
failure to clarify the facts behind the “preliminary
audit reports” being peddled by various sectors to suit
purposes other than the truth and the national
interest.
For the
first time in recent memory, the Trade Union Congress of
the Philippines (TUCP) has joined GSIS president Winston
Garcia’s nemesis, Courage (an organization of government
workers), in slamming the agency’s “absolute lack of
transparency with respect to its overseas investments.”
Former
senator and TUCP secretary general Ernesto “Boy” Herrera
castigated Garcia for his callous disregard for calls
for such disclosure.
But what
should give the bullheaded GSIS chief the shivers is the
demand of no less than Sen. Loren Legarda, who has
heretofore been part of the pro-Garcia chorus, for him
to come out clean on the agency’s overseas investments
and, in particular, whether it has dealt or is dealing,
directly or indirectly, with the failed investment bank
Lehman Brothers.
We note
that just a few months ago GSIS was touting its
placement of $1 billion in a so-called global investment
program in anticipation of better yields and more secure
instruments in the international market. It even went as
far as foisting the credentials of its fund custodian,
Citibank N. A., and its asset managers, ING Investment
Management and Credit Agricole Asset Management Ltd., to
counter criticisms from various sectors that it is
unwisely playing around with the hard-earned monies of
government employees.
Well, by
dragging its feet on the latest disclosure calls is not
calming the waters at all. It is adding more fuel to the
fire.
In any
event, that Legarda should single out Garcia’s inaction
at this time may be partly due to pressures from
government employees and retirees who have been flocking
to the Senate and other offices denouncing what they
call as GSIS’s wayward practices and misplaced
priorities.
But I
have a sneaking suspicion that the lady solon may have
decided to finally speak out against Garcia to preempt
suspicions that her close ties with the GSIS chief and
the latter’s closest associates, including sharing a
public-relations operator, has compromised her on a
number of critical issues.
We
recall that Legarda, who is supposed to be close to the
Lopezes and ABS-CBN, where she used to be a prized
anchor, has mouthed eerily similar attack lines against
the Manila Electric Co. and its owners as Reps. Amado
Bagatsing and Pablo Garcia and even Pete Ilagan of that
pseudo-
consumer group Nasecore.
But with
her epiphany on GSIS’s investment overseas, she may
finally move on and break that unnecessary appellation
for good. Sana nga (I hope so).
Sorting
out the COA reports
Those
headline-grabbing COA reports about irregular or even
unexplained use of government funds may not be as
accurate or factual as the
“whistle blowers” claim them to be.
In the
first place, most, if not all, of those reports are
preliminary findings and will have to go through a
series of review and clarification before any kind of
definitive findings can issue.
Too,
those reports have to be taken in their proper contexts,
otherwise, as they say in computer lingo, it becomes
some kind of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) issuance
being used by some sectors to suit their own agenda.
A case
in point is the brouhaha created some months back by a
COA preliminary finding on alleged expired, costly and
even unused medicines supposedly gathering molds at some
Department of Health warehouse.
Well,
upon further review, it turned out that some but not all
were expired and the latter have been segregated and
burned; a number of those were donated and, therefore,
far from bought at higher prices, and most were just
waiting to be shipped out for use and not gathering dust
as claimed by the critics.
Then
there is the admission of Anak Mindanao Rep. Mujiv
Hataman that his claim of a whopping P2.9-billion
“bonus” allegedly appropriated by Road Board employees
for themselves last year, again, based on a preliminary
COA report, was an out-and-out exaggeration.
The
truth was the employees got bonuses of up to P29
million, which was well within the allowable COA and
Department of Budget and Management rules.
This
same kind of review and clarification is now bringing
light to the egregious claims by the critics about the
alleged misuse of billions of pesos in agricultural
funds. Akbayan Rep. Rissa Hontiveros-Baraquel who raised
hell over those so-called misused funds has been brought
back to earth by no less than the COA report she herself
cited. It now turns out that Baraquel cherry -picked her
way using that report to come out with a selective,
muddled and biased picture of the use of agricultural
funds.
Without
as much as presenting the facts, Baraquel charged her
classmate, Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, with having
irregularly disbursed millions of pesos worth of
subsidized seeds and fertilizers to “ghost farmers” in a
number of regions.
Well,
the COA report says the Department of Agriculture (DA)
did not purchase the inputs directly but only issued the
funds to accredited, presumably by both DA and COA,
suppliers after they were supposed to have given the
inputs to the farmer-beneficiaries based on a verified
master list provided by the municipal agricultural
officers (MAOs).
So, the
DA’s funding role here is supposed to be safeguarded
through the accredited suppliers, and then through the
MAOs who work directly with the farmers.
Quite
apart from that, the COA makes a postaudit of such
disbursements and from there works with the DA to go
after the miscreants, if any.
Baraquel
failed to state that the MAOs are not DA employees; the
suppliers are accredited and can be delisted and even
charged if as much as doing some hanky-panky, and the
COA conducts a postaudit which can then be the basis for
the DA to go after the wrongdoers.
Which is
what Secretary Yap has actually done even ahead of the
COA’s final report when he created a task force to
review the processes, lists and other kinds of
documentation submitted in support of this expanded and,
might I add, relatively successful agriproduction
effort.
Finally,
Baraquel overlooked the positive comments in the same
COA report, which is, of course, unfair as such unduly
scarred the entire agriculture program.
The COA
noted, for instance, that in Eastern Visayas, of the 213
farmers engaged by the audit agency, 95 percent said the
new technology provided by the DA had increased their
rice production while the same number said the seeds
provided them were of good quality.
There
are a number of other alleviating insights culled by the
COA from these field interviews which should give the
lie to all the “fire and brimstone” nonrevelations of
Baraquel and company. Sayang (It’s a pity). |
