WHEN super typhoon Yolanda struck and cut a wide swath of destruction in November 2013, the Aquino administration scrambled for funds for emergency assistance for the affected communities. It rushed to Congress to secure a supplemental budget.
But the Palace actually had money that it could have used pronto, but had not touched for years.
In fact, according to the Commission on Audit (COA), Malacañang at the time could’ve tapped another source of fund for the victims of calamities: a billion-peso donation that it received almost 25 years ago.
In its 2013 Agency Audit Report released last February, COA said that there remains an unutilized amount of P1.4 billion lodged under the Office of the President (OP).
The fund came from Benpress Corporation in the form of a 1990 donation of Meralco (Manila Electric Co.) shares to the OP. The shares were sold in 2008 and recorded under the Office of the President’s accounts only in 2010.
The Deed of Donation, according to the COA report, indicated that the amount “could be used by the Donee (OP) in such projects in economic development according to a national priority plan as it may determine such as agrarian reform, assistance to victims and areas affected by the recent earthquake and rehabilitation of depressed areas.”
In truth, the OP did not lack for opportunities to spend the donation.
As COA noted that in the years after the amount’s appearance in the OP’s accounts, the country suffered great damage and losses from various calamities yet the fund was not touched. In 2013, Yolanda, regarded as the strongest typhoon to make landfall, hit the Philippines and affected 14.1 million Filipinos. (See PCIJ’s stories on Disaster Aid)
In its report, COA reiterated its 2012 recommendation to the OP to prepare a Special Budget “taking into consideration the purpose of the said donation… in order to utilize the funds for the benefit of the constituents especially those severely affected by national calamities.” – Charmaine P. Lirio, PCIJ, March 2015
