Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia | CDN Digital file photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Has the “unconstitutional” Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) been abolished or did it just take another form?
In the Capitol, Governor Gwendolyn Garcia has branded the Local Assistance Fund (LAF) handed to civil society organizations (CSO) as similar to PDAF which is released without accompanying accountability on where the government fund will be spent.
Garcia said the government could never be sure of what the CSOs made of the assistance that they would get from the local government units (LGUs) since they would not be subjected to the audit report of the Commission on Audit.
“Ang mga CSO puros nagpa-accredit kay mangayo man og kwarta sa province. Mao may naandan nga panagaan ang mga NGO. Pero naa ba nay accountability? Wala baya na’y COA [audit report],” Garcia said.
All the CSOs are having themselves accredited because they will ask for funds from the province. That has been the practice that the NGOs will be given funds. But do they have accountability? They are not covered by COA [audit report].)
“For me, that is the PDAF all over again,” she said.
Accreditation of CSOs is provided by the Local Government Code in order to accommodate them in the LGU’s local development councils.
“I am already pronouncing it nga from here on, we are no longer downloading funds to NGOs to civil society groups. Kung kinahanglanon, we will download it to the LGUs or to the barangays at least kini ma-audit sa COA,” the governor said.
(If needed, we will download it to the LGUs or to the barangay. At least this way, the fund usage will be subjected to COA audit.)
Garcia said this announcement was also to protect the members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan who might be pressured with different requests for assistance from NGOs or CSOs.
Read more: SC declares PDAF unconstitutional
Prior to the declaration of unconstitutionality of PDAF, board members extended assistance to NGOs and CSOs through legislative assistance fund (LAF).
In 2016, COA permanently disallowed the LAF as it took in the same form as PDAF or the pork barrel system.
The PDAF of legislators were put to question following the multi-billion corruption scandal that involved the alleged Pork Barrel scam queen Janette Lim-Napoles.
In the Capitol, Garcia said she would call for an audit on the assistance that the Capitol extended to CSOs and NGOs from 2013 to 2019, or during the administration of former governor and now Vice Governor Hilario Davide III./dbs