Singson: DPWH received P10.5B in last months of Arroyo admin

A total of P10.5 billion was released to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in the last months of the Arroyo administration for several projects, some of which are unaccounted for up to now.

This was bared by current DPWH Secretary Rogelio Singson during the hearing of the House committee on good government and public accountability on Tuesday.

According to Singson, the funds were disbursed directly to the DPWH regional and district offices.

He said the P10.5 billion was part of the P10.6 billion released, noting they were able to prevent the release of P100 million in July 2010, or almost a month after President Benigno Aquino III was sworn into office.

That month, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad came out with the memo suspending the utilization of the funds in the absence of a new revenue source.

“Noong pumasok kami sa DPWH noong July, P10.5 billion had already been obligated as of June 30, 2010. Ang naagapan lang namin ay [ang pag-release] ng P100 million. By the time we learned about these funds, there were already several projects ongoing kaya mahirap nang i-monitor,” Singson said.

Singson said a check of the 2010 National Expenditure Program (NEP) and the 2010 General Appropriations Act (GAA) showed a discrepancy of P67.9 billion between the amount indicated in the NEA and the amount approved in the GAA. He said P30.3 billion out of the P67.9 billion was allocated to the DPWH.

The P30.3 billion was inserted in the GAA in the form of congressional insertions during budget deliberations.

Congressional insertions are additional funds in the GAA for other lawmakers' projects that are not funded by their allotted pork barrel funds.

Singson said based on DPWH’s documents, most, if not all of the funds, were used up during the first six months of 2010, or before Aquino won the 2010 presidential elections.

“Definitely they [funds] were released during the first half of 2010. I would imagine most of the funds were released during the first quarter,” he said.

The House panel’s investigation into the funds DPWH received in 2010 was prompted by Singson’s admission in a news report last year that the agency discovered at least P30 billion in “missing” funds, which were unaccounted for during the Arroyo administration.

A 12-kilometer road construction project at Mataas na Kahoy, Batangas—which remains unfinished until now—is just one of the projects that were allegedly funded using the congressional insertions that went to DPWH.

Edwin Gradiola, the contractor who bagged the contract for the project, reportedly failed to submit accomplishment reports to the DPWH for several projects amounting to P6 billion.

A report by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) in 2009 named Gradiola and his wife, Judy, as owners of JSG Construction Co., which bagged a total of P5.7 billion in DPWH contracts from 2000 to 2008.

Interestingly, Singson said, some provinces were also able to corner big chunks of the P10.5 billion DPWH allocation.

Nueva Vizcaya, for instance, received P300 million out of P807 million allocated for Region 2 (Cagayan Valley).  Romblon, meanwhile, received P624 million out of the P636 million allocated for Region 4-B (MIMAROPA).

But the province that appeared to have benefited the most was Biliran Island in Eastern Visayas. It received P1.79 billion out of P3.02 billion allocated to Region 8.

When asked what the provinces which garnered the largest allocations had in common, Singson said all of them appeared to have completely used up the funds they received.

“Kung ano ang in-allocate sa kanila, halos inubos [nila]. Kung na-bid nang tama yung mga projects, dapat lalayo yung na-allocate [sa nagastos]. Pero ito, halos piso lang yata ang natira,” he said. — KBK, GMA News