IF the Commission on Audit’s report is to be believed right away, there’s this one ally of PNoy in the name of Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System Administrator Gerardo Esquivel who’s certainly proving to be a big spender of public monies.
Imagine, in just a year, Esquivel and his board, based on a 2012 CoA report, excessively spent nearly P89 million intended solely for 46 consultants, thereby overshooting the agency’s budget by P121-million.
We were told that the consultancy services were not properly documented since their contracts were signed only the following year aside from the other claims that the hiring of consultants was no longer needed since there were enough MWSS personnel who can perform the designated duties and responsibilities of the hired consultants.
Unless he and his board are able to come out clean amid these alleged irregularities, they’re no different from the previous MWSS management and “just as corrupt as it was before,” as what an independent minority lawmaker was saying.
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Meanwhile, calls for a full overhaul of the leadership in the Department of Agriculture and the National Food Authority must be highly considered in a bid to stop the continued overpriced importation of rice.
The entire bureaucracy must be revamped to put an end to the malpractices of DA and NFA officials, according to lawyer Argee Guevarra, a civil rights advocate.
Guevarra had earlier exposed a P400-million overprice in the rice importation contract entered into by the government with Vietnam, a portion of which was covered by the MOLSO provision or “More Or Less at Supplier’s Option.”
He also lambasted the NFA for the anomalous contract, saying MOLSO could also mean “More Or Less Still Overpriced” rice.
“The President should not be deaf to the clamor of the people. He should take the hint, especially since his alter-ego acted like a goon or a political warlord,” says Guevarra.
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University of the Philippines Prof. J. Prospero de Vera III must be right in saying that the poorest towns in the country and an estimated 6.4 million out of school youth will end up as collateral damage in light of the Supreme Court’s order to stop releasing lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Fund for 2013 and the rush to abolish it in response to the public outcry over the alleged “Napoles Scam.”
He may have wisdom on what he says as he finds that its abolition “will have a disastrous effect on many local communities where a legislator’s pork barrel project is often the only capital investment in the area.”
PDAF projects in 5th and 6th class municipalities go to road construction, repair of day care centers, schools and barangay halls, livelihood projects — provide employment and much-needed infrastructure. “The budget of the local governments can barely pay for salaries and operating expenses, and their needs tend to fall out of the radar screen of national and provincial authorities. A reduction in the pork barrel coupled with a reduction in their Internal Revenue Allotment will be disastrous to poor communities,” he said.
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