THERE are several telling details of how the Kadiwa stores project of the Department of Agriculture (DA) headed by President Marcos Jr. and the Food Terminal Inc. (FTI) is being mismanaged or worse, being used as an opportunity for graft and corruption.
The Office of the Ombudsman should be commended for standing firm on its role as graft-buster as mandated by the Constitution and for upholding its independence. Although the Kadiwa is a pet project of the President and DA secretary and thus in the ordinary scheme of things might deserve a kid-gloves treatment, the Ombudsman fearlessly investigated the purchase of onions by the FTI and DA in December 2022.
The Ombudsman, finding anomalous details in the purchase of onions which are for resale in the Kadiwa hubs, has imposed a six-month preventive suspension on concerned officials of the DA and FTI.
In a four-page order dated Aug. 1, Ombudsman Samuel Martires suspended without pay for six months DA’s Assistant Secretary Kristine Evangelista, administrative officer Eunice Biblanias and chief accountant officer-in-charge Lolita Jamela, as well as FTI’s vice president for operations John Gabriel Benedict Trinidad III and budget division head Juanita Lualhati. It has been a week since the Ombudsman order was released, but there is no word yet from Malacañang on whether the suspension was implemented.
‘… it is time to ask whether these red onions really came from the farms in Central Luzon, and not previously imported and hoarded by the supplier-cooperative.’
The five face charges of grave misconduct, gross neglect of duty and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service, in connection with the alleged manipulation of onion prices and supply as well as FTI’s procurement of the staple from the Bonena Multi-Purpose Cooperative.
According to Martires, the DA entered into a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with FTI on a Kadiwa Food Hub project while FTI has also entered into an agreement with Bonena for the delivery of 8,845 sacks of onions.
Among the violations listed by the Ombudsman were the questionable selection of the cooperative, noncompliance with the MOA, and “doubtful deliveries” by Bonena. The Ombudsman said evidence against these officials was “strong.”
A perusal of the one-page document titled “Computation of Payable to Bonena Multi-Purpose Cooperative, December 29, 2022,” which was prepared by FTI’s Juanita Lualhati and noted by Ma. Luisa D. Perez, would show that this questionable purchase bloated the cost of onions (P12,600 per 28-kilo bag) to P15,036 per bag due to additional items like handling, logistics, allowance for losses, agent’s commission, supervisory and distribution costs, and miscellaneous expenses.
The document says total payable by FTI to the supplier is P132,993,420. This means that to be able to sell red onions at Kadiwa stores for P170 per kilo, the government will have to shell out P537 a kilo, with government-subsidized loss of P367 per kilo. With 8,845 bags of 28 kilos each, the Marcos administration is in effect losing about P90.9 million just to prove to Filipinos that its Kadiwa stores can sell onions at the cheap price of P170 a kilo. No wonder a member of the Monetary Board, speaking to business reporters at a press conference a few weeks ago, concluded that the Kadiwa as a marketing project is not sustainable. We were not surprised that he disowned this statement the next day.
We urge the Ombudsman to continue prosecuting this case to its logical conclusion, and also look into the composition of Bonena’s membership. Are they really onion farmers from Nueva Ecija whom President Bongbong Marcos is sworn to help? With the Ombudsman talking about questionable deliveries, it is time to ask whether these red onions really came from the farms in Central Luzon, and not previously imported and hoarded by the supplier-cooperative.
