SENATE minority leader Franklin Drilon on Tuesday questioned the capability of the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS DBM) to partake in the modernization program of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, which he said is beyond its mandate of procuring common use supplies for government agencies.
Drilon, during his interpellation of the proposed P297.1 billion budget for next year of the Department of National Defense (DND), said the PS DBM went beyond its authority when it accepted funds to purchase equipment for the AFP’s modernization program.
“So how can funds for the AFP modernization be transferred to PS-DBM? I can’t imagine how our AFP modernization program funds, to the tune of P39.7 billion, were transferred to PS-DBM for the purchase of common-use equipment. These were transferred which really went beyond the mandate of PS-DBM,” Drilon said.
He added that the DND still has an unliquidated balance of P5.2 billion parked in the PS-DBM, and another P4.6 billion transferred to the Philippine International Trading Corporation as of December 31, 2020.
Drilon directed the DND to respond to his queries and submit a summary of the expenses in a written explanation.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson seconded Drilon’s grilling, adding that the Philippine Army also has at least P8.523 billion in unliquidated funds with the PITC, based on figures from the 2020 Commission on Audit report.
Lacson said records show that the PITC received P15.927 billion from the Philippine Army from 2007 to 2020, but P8.523 billion of this is still unaccounted for.
“Every year we scrounge for funds for the AFP modernization, even for AFP’s revised modernization program. The cause of delay was due to funding gaps, yet we find out from the COA report that there are unliquidated balances of P8.5 billion,” Lacson said.
Worse, he added, the PITC failed to deliver on its commitment to the Philippine Army.
The senator said records show that its deliveries were virtually zero — 0.01 percent in 2019 and 0.22 percent in 2020. The PITC however, despite the lack of deliveries, earned some P640 million from the Army’s P15.9 billion “deposit” due to the four percent fee the agency collects.
