By Perfecto T. Raymundo, Jr.
SAN JUAN CITY – A former lawmaker on Friday (Sept. 6) said that Vice President Sara Duterte should be held accountable for gross neglect of duty as former Secretary of the Department of Education (DepEd).
During “The Agenda” Media Forum hosted by Atty. Siegfred Mison on Friday (Sept. 6), 2024 at the Waling Waling Room, Club Filipino, Liza Maza, former Gabriela Women’s Party-list Rep., noted that Secretary Sonny Angara has handicaps when it comes to the Budget of DepEd as he is in the “adjustment period”, considering that he has staff to take up the matter.
Maza cited the 2021 and 2020 procurement and expenditures in a way, they can be included, for example the notices of disallowance can be 2019, 2020, 2021, as it is the responsibility of the one sitting there that it cannot be avoided that you should take responsibility for it.
The budget is very important because it is a very thick book as it contains the priorities of the government where the budget would go, on how you utilized the former budget whether or not you spent it or not.
You should determine where did the budget go and the people has the right to know about it.
Maza noted that in the previous years, each department had confidential fund, adding that, in general, the confidential and intelligence fund grew over the years, not because something isz being done.
The advocacy of Makabayan bloc is to stop the confidential and intelligence fund.
The DepEd had P150 million, and there was a time that P115 million of that was not liquidated and no particulars or details.
If there is such a secrecy in the disbursement of confidential fund, that is where corruption comes in.
It has become “common” that the confidential fund has become a “milking cow” of some.
According to COA reports, computer laptops 2023 2.3 billion out of 11.36 billion which should be appropriated for that and there was a low utilization and there was the danger of corruption.
It should be reported and returned to the central fund.
The problem is that there is already a history of “underutilization” and yet you are always requesting for the confidential fund.
There should be a process and as a matter of principle, the unutilized budget should be returned to the national treasury and request again for another budget.
First, there should be a budget process such that before you propose your budget, you have to study the budget and request for the budget and answer all the necessary questions.
For an example in the NAPC (National Anti-Poverty Commission), there is a good planning and budget officer. However, there is a problem in budgeting that increases.
They were not able to explain how the money was spent. How there was a low utilization, only 25 percent?
If you are good in the management, the budget process will be easy, and it’s more in looking into the matter, and the experience in the DepEd was manifested.
As a matter of real suggestion, what really is the use of the confidential fund and where it will be spent.
As an unsolicited advice to Secretary Angara, he should really release the proper budget.
The Vice President should really be held accountable for what she did in the DepEd for gross neglect of responsibility as DepEd Secretary.
Even during the time of Maza, there was question leading to such as if there should be a “standard” for this, and not for each new DepEd Secretary, there’s always a new “standard”.
As part of the House Committee on Appropriations, Maza said that it seems in some areas there were some “substandard”, but by en large, there’s still a “discrepancy” in the matter of a classroom and the pricing.
“There should be a standard in the classrooms. We feel, we really lack classrooms, especially during the summer period as there was no conducive classroom where the students can study very well,” Maza said.
On the procurement of some items, Maza said, it’s difficult in the sense that there were LGUs who put the budget on health as priority and there is a devolution problems.
However, there should be a national policy or standard on basic services or basic necessities or goods and services.
It should be “nationalized”, but the problem lies on those who handle the services, and the national services should be headed by decent and responsible leaders.
The department head should be responsible for their mandate and those to be found corrupt should be held accountable, as well as the elected officials.
In a country that is poor, guns, good and gold is very “susceptible”, and the media has an important role to play to educate the people against the corrupt and inept.
“Evasive and not answering the questions, and even returning back the questions, and being the daughter of the former President, she thinks she can get away with it,” Maza said.
She added that the Vice President was the only one who behaved like that and even maligning the lawmakers in the way she treated them during the budget hearing at the House Committee on Appropriations.
She has no right to answer like that and behaved like that. “I think that is already a ground for impeachment,” she said. It is in the trust that she is going to do her job well. The abuse of power and the inability to explain on how she spent the budget and that is a basis to say that there was an “erosion” in the public trust.
“I think this is very arrogant and unbecoming of a public official,” Maza said.
There should be a quarterly reporting, even monthly reporting. There should be a report for the month or for the quarter on how the money was spent, where it was spent and how to manage the agency or a department.
There seems to be a “conspiracy” such that it is being imputed in the system and it is being institutionalized for subtle saving for pork barrel or unprogrammed appropriations such as the excess fund in PhilHealth, which was rechanneled to unprogrammed project, as is “institutionalized corruption”.
The “check and balance” in the confidential fund is really that it should be “opened” and there should be a “guideline” for the specific purpose of the budget.
Maza stressed that corruption should be exposed in order to determine the problem, and there should be freedom in exposing the corruption.
With the expose of corruption, the problem is determined, and the people have to call out and institute a solution to address the problem, and if it is repeated again, plunder charges should be filed.
If we will study it very well, all the problems are interconnected such that corruption is a deep-rooted problem and should be addressed properly.
The Makabayan bloc is pushing for general agrarian reform, land reform, national industrialization, women’s right, program for peace, program for national independence and independent foreign policy, no to political dynasty, elimination of corruption and harsh penalty to corrupt officials.
It is difficult if everybody benefits from the confidential intelligence fund, and it should be repealed once and for all.
The immediate solution is to delete confidential intelligence fund from the general appropriations act, which is its legal basis. “We have to be discerning such that it is “pork barrel” and it only carries a different name.”
Maza also expressed her support to include the subsidy for the Girl Scout of the Philippines and the Boy Scout of the Philippines in the General Appropriations Act.
She opposed the proposal to make English as the medium of instruction and she was thankful that it did not succeed, noting that, the “mother tongue” or native language is now being discouraged from schools.
“I already called for a zero budget for the OVP (Office of the Vice President) until you get the reports and that’s the powerful tool of the Congress. And I don’t know what would be the demeanor of the Vice President next year,” Maza said.
