EVEN after the Supreme Court ruled that the Aquino administration’s Priority Development Assistance Fund as unconstitutional, the Department of Budget and Management went on to release more than P67 million to finance lawmakers’ projects.
According to a 2014 report of the Commission on Audit, the DBM released the P67 million after the high court issued a temporary restraining order on the fund releases in September 2013 and of that amount, P15 million was released after the SC ruled on November 19, 2013 that the PDAF was illegal.
The DBM released notices of cash allowances, amounting to P67.266 million, to finance various projects of lawmakers despite a temporary restraining order issued by the SC on September 10, 2013, to stop the release of the PDAF funds until it resolved the issue on its constitutionality, GMA News Online reported Friday.
It said the DBM re-issued notices of cash allowance (NCAs) amounting to P15 million coming from the lawmakers’ PDAF, to replace NCAs that already lapsed prior to the SC’s ruling on the constitutionality of the PDAF system.
The state audit body further noted that of the P67.266 million worth of NCAs, P15,000,784 were released after the SC finally ruled on November 19, 2013, that the use and existence of PDAF were unconstitutional.
The COA said that the DBM with the help of the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) on December 31, 2013, sought a clarification from SC on the proper implementation of its ruling especially when it comes to NCAs that had already been released but the utilization within the given period has lapsed prior to the high tribunal’s decision in November 2013.
State auditors, however, bared that the DBM had already proceeded on December 23, 2013, with the re-issuance of the lapsed NCAs even without waiting for the SC’s resolution on its motion for clarification with a prayer to allow the re-issuance of the NCAs.
“However, we noted that in December 2013, the DBM already issued NCAs of P15,000,784.00 to replace the NCAs previously issued that have lapsed. The said issuance of NCAs was made without the response/clarification yet from the SC,” the COA report read.
On March 11, 2014, the SC denied the prayer of DBM for the re-issuance of lapsed NCAs “for lack of merit”.
Based on the COA records, the money was released for supposed scholarship projects, assistance to indigent patients in hospitals and for the construction of an academic building at the Abra State Institute of Sciences and Technology.
“The NCAs previously issued mentioned above…had already lapsed and in normal circumstances when government agencies needed to pay for their maturing obligation, a request from the DBM is made and DBM in return releases the NCA to the requesting Agency,” the COA report said.
“However, since the abovementioned lapsed NCAs were for payments of PDAF projects which were already declared unconstitutional, these funds should not have been released by DBM,” the report added.
In a letter sent to COA on October 17, 2014, the DBM management claimed that the re-issuance of the lapsed NCAs was done in good faith saying that it is their “considered view that the re-issuance of NCAs already covered by [previous] NCAs issued prior to the SC Decision is valid”.
With all due respect, at the time the NCAs subject of the AOM (Audit Observation Memorandum) were re-issued, the SC has yet to promulgate its resolution on our Motion for Clarification which eventually denied the prayer for the DBM to re-issue lapsed NCAs,” the DBM letter read.
The DBM pointed out that there is no provision in the SC’s November 2013 ruling prohibiting the re-issuance of lapsed NCAs.
“There was definitely nothing in the SC Decision permanently enjoining the release of PDAF which prohibits the DBM from re-issuing lapsed NCAs. In fact, the SC Decision expressly excluded from such prohibition the disbursement and release of PDAF already covered by NCAs issued prior to the SC Decision,” the DBM said.
The COA, however, dismissed the DBM’s justification, stressing that “the audit team believes that when the SC Decision to declare PDAF unconstitutional, all releases whether for obligational (SARO) and disbursement (NCA) authority must have ceased.”
It said the DBM had already discontinued the re-issuance of other lapsed NCAs after the March 2014 denial by SC of its motion for clarification.
“Consistent with the [COA] recommendation, the [DBM] Management has indeed discontinued the re-issuance of lapsed NCAs given the Supreme Court’s Resolution on the DBM’s Motion for Clarification,” the COA report said.