Do nothing with P1.4-B donation?

By Charmaine P. Lirio

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 had not touched for years, and which it could have used pronto to assist Yolanda’s victims.

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 with the Office of the President (OP).

The fund came from Benpres 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 donation was the offshoot of a compromise agreement between the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) and the Meralco Foundation, Inc. (MFI) for the divestment of Meralco shares that PCGG had sequestered in favor of the government.

PCGG is tasked with the recovery of ill-gotten wealth from ousted President Ferdinand Marcos, his family and relatives, and other connections.

MFI, on the other hand, is a foundation formed by Benjamin ‘Kokoy’ Romualdez, brother of Imelda Marcos. MFI acquired control and ownership of Meralco during Marcos’s rule from Eugenio Lopez’s Benpres Corporation (now Lopez Holdings).

Aside from the disposition of shares and remittance of its proceeds to the government, the compromise agreement contained provisions on the delivery of shares back to Benpres.

Benpres, in turn, donated over three million of the shares it received from the agreement to the Office of the President. From 1990 up until its sale in 2008, the shares, including the donated ones, were held in trust by a board created by the PCGG.

The P1.38-billion proceeds of the sale was first recorded in the Bureau of Treasury and then two years later appeared under the OP’s accounts. With an earned interest of P29.63 million, the donation now amounts to P1.41 billion.

The Deed of Donation, according to COA, 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.”

Much earlier, in fact, the Office of the President did not lack for opportunities to spend the donation.

COA noted that in the years after the amount’s appearance in the OP’s accounts, the country had 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.” – PCIJ, March 2015