MANILA – Some P59.8 million worth of subsistence allowance for the Special Action Force has not been released, Sen. Panfilo Lacson claimed. He wanted to investigate this.
Failure to give out the amount to the elite Philippine National Police unit “threatens to demoralize … the frontliners in fighting terrorism and criminality,” Lacson stressed.
The senator pressed for a review of laws and their implementation to ensure that the elite police get the benefits due them and to punish the erring concerned parties.
“We cannot allow, yet again, another injustice to be committed against our heroes in uniform … lest we risk demoralization within their ranks,” Lacson said in Senate Resolution 712.
Some 4,000 SAF members were entitled to a daily additional subsistence allowance, or ASA, of P30 (or P900 per month) and allocations for EOD Hazardous Pay, he said.
But they got their share of the ASA only for January 2016 and from January to July 2017, said Lacson.
Then SAF director Benjamin Lusad and budget officer Senior Superintendent Andre Dizon admitted they got the unreleased ASA and used the amount for operational expenses, fellowship and training, but without showing any proof of liquidation, said the senator.
Lacson, a former PNP chief, suspected there was unlawful withholding of the funds.
This “constitutes a criminal or unlawful act, and runs counter to the evident policy of the President to increase the pay of our military and uniformed personnel to repay them for their sacrifices,” he said.
He proposed a remedial legislation that would “correct the same and put a stop to this unlawful practice to the prejudice of the intended beneficiaries.”/PN
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