Fund releases not meant to benefit 4 senators, DBM clarifies

E WOULD like to clarify some points raised in the INQUIRER’s Feb. 21 banner story, “P370M for 4 senators for ‘stimulus’—Palace”

The fund releases made to Senators Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Jinggoy Estrada, Vicente Sotto III and Ramon Revilla Jr. were not advance releases, nor were they made in relation to the impeachment trial of then Chief Justice Renato Corona. While the final release of funds for their endorsed projects was made in mid-March of 2012, the original releases were in fact made in December of the previous year, two months after the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) was launched.

It’s worth noting as well that several of the fund releases charged against DAP were made from October to December 2011, in a bid to raise the government’s expenditure levels and reinforce the country’s fiscal position for that same year. These releases included those made for projects identified byMarcos, Estrada, Sotto and Revilla, which they endorsed in fund-request letters sent to the DBM in November 2011.

We also wish to emphasize that in their original requests—submitted to the DBM in late November 2011, the four senators first named the Department of Agrarian Reform the implementing agency for their nominated projects. They all identified these projects as livelihood or agribusiness programs for farmer-beneficiaries under DAR’s agrarian reform initiatives. After the senators’ requests were processed, the DBM issued Special Allotment Release Orders (Saros) to DAR on Dec. 6, 2011.

Later that month, however, Estrada and Revilla wrote the DBM, requesting realignment to the National Livelihood Development Corp. (NLDC) of the Saros originally issued to the DAR. Marcos and Sotto later made the same request in February 2012. In these requests, all four senators changed the nature of the programs they nominated, so that the fund releases would instead support “livelihood projects” for “displaced/ family beneficiaries” nationwide, or for “displaced families/families of marginal farmers,” particularly those affected by natural calamities.

Upon submission of the proper requirements, the DBM withdrew the Saros previously issued to DAR and made the releases instead to NLDC, precisely as the four senators requested. The Saros for NLDC were later issued on March 15, 2012.

We’d like to emphasize that none of these releases were supposed to go to the offices of Senators Marcos, Estrada, Sotto, and Revilla, and that none of these funds should have benefited the four lawmakers in any manner. This is why all fund releases—including those charged against DAP—are always made to the agency responsible for implementing a specific project. Every Saro we issue also expresses—in the clearest terms—that the use of funds is subject to budget and accounting guidelines, and that any violation of those rules will not be tolerated. Agencies involved in the irregular use of funds will thus be answerable to the Commission on Audit or, if needed, the Office of the Ombudsman.

The release of funds for senator-backed projects—particularly those endorsed by Senators Marcos, Estrada, Sotto, and Revilla—underwent the regular fund release process. The DBM issues Saros only when release requirements are properly met, and in the case of the four senators, fund realignments from one implementing agency to another were made exactly as the legislators requested, and only after their offices had satisfied the necessary requirements.