Drilon: P33.4-B mula sa gov’t fund, ‘natutulog’ lang sa PITC

Naniniwala si Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon na ginawa umanong ‘pawn’ o imbakan ng budget ng mga ahensiya ng pamahalaan ang Philippine International Trading Center (PITC) para iwasan ang obligasyon na ibalik ang hindi nagamit na pondo sa kaban ng bayan.

Sa kanyang privilege speech ngayong Martes, sinabi nito na dapat pilitin ng Senado ang small trading firm na nasa ilalim ng Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) na maibalik sa National Treasury ang P33.4 bilyon na “nakagarahe” sa bank account ng PITC.

“Clearly, government agencies are using PITC to skirt the end-of-the-year validity of appropriations. Thus, the funds are obligated before the appropriation expires…PITC effectively provides a mechanism to hide inefficiencies in government,” saad niya.

“The government is having difficulties raising funds due to the drop in revenues. But here you have government agencies depositing their budgets in PITC to make it appear that the funds are obligated, where, in truth and fact, it is sleeping in the coffers of PITC and interest is being earned,” dagdag pa niya.

Sinabi ni Drilon na mula noong 2015, may nakadepositong P4.8 bilyon sa PITC, saka lumobo ito sa P33.4 bilyon nitong 2019.

What is happening is that government agencies, which are supposed to purchase products, would engage the services of this little-known trading agency and pass on the budget there so that they will say that these are already obligated, when, in fact, they are just deposited,” lahad pa ng senador.

Aniya, kung naka-deposito ang naturang pondo sa alinmang bangko, kumikita ito ng interes kada taon, pero walang nakakaalam kung ibinabalik ito sa pamahalaan.

“Certain questions arise: these amounts deposited by gov’t agencies, as I said it runs to P33.4 billion in 2019, and yearly this has grown, these parked funds earned interests, is it remitted back to the government?” aniya.

“Number two, PITC makes profit in its operation. They charge what you call a service fee which is anywhere between 1 to 5 percent. Therefore, their profits in 2019, it made over P629M on the basis of the COA reports. How much of that was remitted to the government?”

Ipinag-aalala din ni Drilon na kung may ganitong kalakaran sa PITC, nakatakda itong sumingil ng komisyon sa pagbili ng bakuna laban sa coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) matapos itong atasan ng IATF at DOH.

“What is a little bit worrisome to me is the agency is being tapped to handle the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines and the allocation, from what we heard, is about P20 billion. At a 1% commission, that’s about P200 million for P20 billion. If you add the other deposits, which are from other agencies, assuming they earn 1% commission, their potential profit is P540M.This is a small trading company attached to the DTI,” paliwanag pa ni Drilon.

Dahil dito,  tiniyak niya na kanilang uungkatin ang operasyon ng PITC at susuriing mabuti kung saan napunpunta ang komisyon na sinisingil nito sa mga ahensiya ng pamahalaan.

“I don’t even know if they even remitted these profits. I don’t know how much their bonuses and salaries are. Here we have a GCG, which is supposed to monitor the performance of GOCCs. We created, wrote and passed this law. Obviously, the GCG is not doing its jobs because here, suddenly, because of our question, we discovered that P33B in funds are being parked in the coffers of PITC and we do not know how it is being disposed of. It does not pass through Congress.”

“There is really a valid basis to start looking into the operations of PITC and see whether we are being shortchanged or, worse, there are commissions running all over the place, you know what commissions are,” tugon pa ng senador.