Full-blown hype

Issues raised by senators regarding the Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC) can be categorized as being among the conspiracy theories against the administration that should indicate that the political mudslinging in the run-up to 2022 has started.

The call for the abolition of the PITC is obviously aimed at Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary Ramon Lopez who is President Rodrigo Duterte’s silent but effective worker and formerly a part of the yellow business circle.

Raised against PITC was that the state trading company has entered into “illegal and immoral” activities, which senators raised as arguments for its abolition.

The legislators’ bone of contention is that PITC

“parked” funds from

various government agencies that are kept in the money market to earn interests. Without regard to the explanations of Lopez on how the PITC operates, the senators kept up with their allegations directed at the DTI chief, who happens to be the agency’s chairman.

Lopez, who is a former private executive, said that contingent money is needed for the payment of acquisitions, some of which are held up by paperwork.

Also being brandished by the senators is a letter from the Department of Finance (DoF) requesting the return to the National Treasury of P33.4 billion from government agencies, which have coursed their procurement of supplies through PITC.

The letter, placed in context, was written during the current efforts to scan the government of funds needed for procurements and subsidies to sustain the battle against the coronavirus disease.

One of the yellow senators sought an Executive Order for the return of the amount to the Treasury, which was obviously a political play.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM), when asked about the allegations on PITC, said those were implementation issues “among agencies and the PITC, and not a budgetary concern.”

DBM Secretary Wendel Avisado said he informed DoF Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III that once money is “transferred by government agencies to PITC, they become part of the PITC corporate funds.”

Avisado also cited PITC’s character as a “self-sustaining government corporation,” which does not get budgetary support from the DBM.

According to the Budget chief, the trust liabilities, or what the senators term as parked funds, were “outside the purview of the DBM” and should best be settled by the DTI or the DoF-Corporate Affairs Group.

The trust liability that Dominguez cited in his letter may have been mistaken by the senators as meaning that PITC has a confidence issue, while it merely refers to funds held to pay a liability or debt.

Avisado added that the documents that the DoF submitted and were apparently the bases of the senators’ rant against the PITC “do not provide information on the status of the transferred funds,” or whether these are completed, ongoing or discontinued projects.

“Only funds held by the PITC, so determined, will qualify for purposes of withdrawal and subsequent reversion to the Bureau of the Treasury,” Avisado explained.

In essence, the DBM, which is the authority in government finances, is saying that the interagency concern has been unnecessary blown up and achieved for the accusers a series of newspaper headlines.

“Avisado also cited PITC’s character as a “self sustaining government corporation,” which does not get budgetary support from the DBM.

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Raised against PITC was that the state trading company has entered into ‘illegal and immoral’ activities, which senators raised as arguments for its abolition.