CONSIDER these worrisome findings of the Commission on Audit (COA) on the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) of the government:
* P10.746 billion (unliquidated balance of fund transfers to the Land Bank (liquidation must be within five working days after each payout)
* P5.385 billion in unclaimed cash grants for over-the-counter payment (2013 to 2017)
* P1.323 billion in account balances not withdrawn
* P1.2 billion in 1.89 million accounts with outstanding balances
Where are the beneficiaries that are supposed to receive these funds? We can’t help but wonder if these findings indicate corruption, rigging or padding of the 4Ps system.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) must urgently comply with the guidance of COA to remit to the National Treasury those unwithdrawn 4Ps funds. These must be returned to the Treasury so they do not get spent on purposes they were not budgeted for or withdrawn by people who should not receive these funds.
The COA audit finding means the DSWD 4Ps database must be cleaned up. No doubt about it. Despite many years of implementation, the 4Ps database of beneficiaries must be continually audited to weed out ghost beneficiaries and beneficiaries the DSWD has lost track of, may have relocated residence, or are no longer qualified to receive the cash grants but are still in the system because of processing time lags.
It is probable that a number of the intended beneficiaries the P15 billion was meant for are ghost beneficiaries and could be the handiwork of a syndicate that has access to DSWD’s 4Ps systems and procedures. It is possible that people posing as the ghost beneficiaries were unable to withdraw the cash for some reason or another.
DSWD secretary Virginia Orogo must investigate this and uproot any and all in her department who may be cohorts in attempting to defraud the government of 4Ps funds or who did not perform their required tasks to make sure the 4Ps database has integrity and the system works as it should.
The P15 billion unwithdrawn or even a significant chunk of that, if found to be part of a systematic scheme to try to siphon away government funds, would be plunder. Every person, whether DSWD or outside of DSWD, who is part of any scheme to steal the 4Ps funds must be dealt with to the fullest extent of our criminal and civil laws.
