4th aquino impeachment complaint - hidden pork
DESCRIPTION
Includes transcripts of lawmakers' meetings with Secretaries Patricia Licuanan and Janette Garin which allegedly reveals lawmakers still have access to realigned pork barrel fundsTRANSCRIPT
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Congress of the Republic of the Philippines HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
House of Representatives Complex Constitution Hills, Quezon City
IN THE MATTER OF THE IMPEACHMENT OF BENIGNO S. AQUINO III AS PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES ACT Teachers Party-List Representative ANTONIO L. TINIO; National Artist for Literature BIENVENIDO LUMBERA; CYNTHIA N. LUMBERA; Alliance of Concerned Teachers Philippines Chairperson (ACT Philippines) BENJAMIN G. VALBUENA, Secretary General FRANCISCA L. CASTRO, and Deputy Secretary General VLADIMER A. QUETUA; Quezon City Public School Teachers Association (QCPSTA) President DR. PRISCILLA D. AMPUAN; ACT National Capital Region-Union Secretary JOSELYN F. MARTINEZ; Manila Public School Teachers Association (MPSTA) President LOUIE L. ZABALA; ACT State Universities and Colleges Spokesperson CLEVE KEVIN ROBERT V. ARGUELLES and Local Universities and Colleges Representative VERONICA L. GREGORIO; All-UP Workers Union (AUPWU) Former National President FELIX PARIṄAS and National President DR. RAMON GUILLERMO; Congress of Teachers and Educators for Nationalism and Democracy (CONTEND-UP) Chairperson DR. GERARDO LANUZA; UP Kilos Na Convenor SARAH JANE RAYMUNDO; and AIM Faculty Association President PROF. EMMANUEL LEYCO,
Complainants.
IMPEACHMENT COMPLAINT AGAINST PRESIDENT BENIGNO SIMEON AQUINO III
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PREFATORY
The people have risen up against institutionalized patronage and legitimized graft and corruption as embodied by the pork barrel system. Their nationwide rage and activism pushed the Supreme Court (SC) to promulgate Belgica vs. Ochoa1 and declare as unconstitutional portions of that system, the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or “congressional pork” and two forms of “presidential pork,” for violating the principles for a democratic and transparent government.
Ruled the High Court, “provisions of past and present Congressional
Pork Barrel Laws…which authorize/d legislators—whether individually or collectively organized into committees—to intervene, assume or participate in any of the various post-enactment stages of the budget execution, such as but not limited to the areas of project identification, modification and revision of project identification, fund release and/or fund realignment, unrelated to the power of congressional oversight…[and] all informal practices of similar import and effect.”2 The SC has ruled that the practice of dealing pork to lawmakers (1) violates constitutional principles of separation of powers, the non-delegability of legislative power, and the presidential veto power; (2) impairs public accountability; and (3) subverts genuine local autonomy. In other words, congressional pork, however dealt, destroys the foundations of democratic and transparent government and allows the people’s money to be used for purposes other than their interest.
The Decision embodies the letter and spirit of the law, clear and undeniable to everyone—most especially the President, the highest official duty-bound to implement all laws. This law, in turn, ensures that the interests of the people are served, through the proper and transparent management and disbursement of the funds they have entrusted to the government.
In spite of the Decision, and contrary to his pronouncements to the public that “it is time to abolish PDAF,”3 President Benigno Simeon Aquino III has retained the congressional pork barrel—albeit in ways that are hidden in plain sight, an open secret running rampant in agencies directly under his watch.
By his perpetuation of informal practices of dealing pork barrel to
members of Congress to the detriment of public interest, President Benigno 1 G.R. No. 208566, 19 November 2013. Hereinafter, the Decision. 2 The Decision, pages 69-70. 3 Pahayag ni Pangulong Aquino ukol sa abolisyon ng PDAF, ika-23 ng Agosto 2013. Available in http://www.gov.ph/2013/08/23/pahayag-ni-pangulong-aquino-ukol-sa-abolisyon-ng-pdaf-ika-23-ng-agosto-2013/. Last accessed on 10 August 2014.
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Simeon Aquino III broke his oath of office and betrayed the public trust. By his blatant violation of the legal prohibition against congressional pork, he deliberately, gravely, and culpably violated the Constitution. With these acts, he has proven himself unfit and undeserving to continue occupying the seat entrusted to him by the Filipino people.
THE ACTION
1. This is an impeachment complaint against President Aquino for his betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution in relation to his blatant violation of the law prohibiting congressional pork barrel laid down in the Belgica v. Ochoa ruling.
2. Complainants accuse Benigno Simeon Aquino III, President of the
Republic of the Philippines, of betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution. This Complaint will detail how he, as Chief Executive, has laid in place procedures and practices which allow legislators to exercise post-enactment discretion, intervention, and participation in the use of lump-sum funds appropriated for a number of national government agencies. In short, he is responsible for perpetuating the prohibited Congressional Pork Barrel.
JURISDICTION
3. This verified impeachment complaint is being filed before the House of Representatives, for immediate referral to its Committee on Justice pursuant to its rules and Article XI, Section 3 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution.4
PARTIES
4. Complainants, all Filipinos and of legal age, are: a. ACT Teachers Party-List Representative Antonio L. Tinio, a member of the House of Representatives; b. Bienvenido Lumbera, National Artist for Literature; c. Cynthia N. Lumbera;
4 Section 2 (a) and (b), Rule II of the Rules of Procedure in Impeachment Proceedings in the House of Representatives in relation to Section 42, Rule X and Section 28 (aa), Rule IX of the Rules of the House of Representatives and Francisco, Jr. vs. House of Representatives (G.R. No. 160261, 10 November 2003), which implement Article XI, Section 3 of the Constitution on the initiation of impeachment complaints.
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d. Benjamin G. Valbuena, Chairperson of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers Philippines; e. Francisca L. Castro, Secretary General of ACT Philippines; f. Vladimer A. Quetua, Deputy Secretary General of ACT Philippines; g. Dr. Priscilla D. Ampuan, President of Quezon City Public School Teachers Association (QCPSTA); h. Joselyn F. Martinez, Secretary of the ACT National Capital Region-Union; i. Louie L. Zabala, President of the Manila Public School Teachers Association (MPSTA); j. Cleve Kevin Robert V. Arguelles, Spokesperson of ACT State Universities and Colleges; k. Veronica L. Gregorio, Local Universities and Colleges Representative of ACT SUCs; l. Felix Pariñas, Former National President of All-UP Workers Union (AUPWU); m. Dr. Ramon Guillermo, National President of AUPWU; n. Dr. Gerardo Lanuza, Chairperson of Congress of Teachers and Educators for Nationalism and Democracy (CONTEND-UP); o. Prof. Sarah Jane Raymundo, Convenor of UP Kilos Na; and p. Prof. Emmanuel Leyco, President of the AIM Faculty Association. 5. Complainants may be served with orders and notices from this
House of Representatives through counsel at the address indicated below. 6. Respondent Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III is the incumbent
President of the Republic of the Philippines. He may be served with a copy of this complaint and notices from the House of Representatives at New Executive Building, Malacañang Palace Compound, J.P. Laurel Street, San Miguel, Manila.
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STATEMENT OF FACTS
7. Although discretionary lump sum funds such as PDAF, Malampaya funds, and the President’s Social Fund have been plaguing the public coffers for decades, multibillion-peso scams erupted one after another beginning mid-2013. News and official government reports, mainly Report No. 2012-03 released by the Special Audits Office of the Commission on Audit5 on the allocation and use of Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and Various Infrastructure including Local Projects (VILP), proved that these amorphous funds are highly vulnerable to dissipation in favor of the likes of Janet Lim-Napoles, her fake NGOs, and her politician cohorts.
8. Aside from detailing how billions of public funds are lost to graft
and corruption, these accounts show how discretionary lump sums are used for political patronage from the lowest level of government up to the highest. News investigations and analyses detail how the PDAF and its earlier incarnations greased the wheels of Congress6 and, in the process, deprived the people of basic social services.7
9. Widespread public outrage against the pork barrel system fuelled
the August 26 “Million People March” in Luneta, Manila and in several protest sites in and out of the country. It also gave rise to various anti-pork alliances across sectors and classes, all demanding the abolition of all forms of pork, the prosecution of those accountable for looting the public coffers, and the rechanneling of these funds to basic social services. One such alliance is the #AbolishPork Movement, which would later spearhead the People’s Initiative Against Pork (PIAP) to enact a law abolishing the pork barrel system.
10. From late August to early September 2013, three petitions were
filed before the SC questioning the constitutionality of the PDAF. On 10 September, the SC issued a temporary restraining order enjoining the DBM, National Treasurer, Executive Secretary, or any person acting under their authority from releasing the remaining PDAF allocated to Members of Congress under the General Appropriations Act (GAA) of 2013.8
5 Hereinafter, the COA Report. 6 Pork is a Political, Not A Developmental, Tool. Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, Chua, Yvonne T. and Cruz, Booma http://pcij.org/stories/2004/pork.html. Last accessed on 9 August 2014. Cited in Belgica (page 3). 7 The people have spoken: End institutionalized plunder now! Center for People Empowerment in Governance Issue Analysis No. 03, 25 August 2013. Posted in http://www.cenpeg.org/IA%202013/PDF/CenPEG_Analysis_End_Pork_Barrel_Aug_25_2013.pdf. Last accessed on 10 August 2014. 8 Republic Act 10352
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11. On 19 November 2013, the SC promulgated Belgica v. Ochoa, which defines the pork barrel system as “the collective body of rules and practices that govern the manner by which lump-sum, discretionary funds, primarily intended for local projects, are utilized through the respective participations of the Legislative and Executive branches of government, including its members.”9
12. The outlawed PDAF or “congressional pork barrel,” on the other
hand, is “a kind of lump-sum, discretionary fund wherein legislators, either individually or collectively organized into committees, are able to effectively control certain aspects of the fund’s utilization through various post-enactment measures and/or practices.”10
13. Concluded the High Court: “The Court renders this Decision to rectify an error which has persisted in the chronicles of our history. In the final analysis, the Court must strike down the Pork Barrel System as unconstitutional in view of the inherent defects in the rules within which it operates. To recount, insofar as it has allowed legislators to wield, in varying gradations, non-oversight, post[-]enactment authority in vital areas of budget execution, the system has violated the principle of separation of powers; insofar as it has conferred unto legislators the power of appropriation by giving them personal, discretionary funds from which they are able to fund specific projects which they themselves determine, it has similarly violated the principle of non[-]delegability of legislative power; insofar as it has created a system of budgeting wherein items are not textualized into the appropriations bill, it has flouted the prescribed procedure of presentment and, in the process, denied the President the power to veto items; insofar as it has diluted the effectiveness of congressional oversight by giving legislators a stake in the affairs of budget execution, an aspect of governance which they may be called to monitor and scrutinize, the system has equally impaired public accountability; insofar as it has authorized legislators, who are national officers, to intervene in affairs of purely local nature, despite the existence of capable local institutions, it has likewise subverted genuine local autonomy x x x. “For as long as this nation adheres to the rule of law, any of the multifarious unconstitutional methods and mechanisms the Court has herein pointed out should never again be adopted in any system of governance, by any name or form, by any semblance or similarity, by any influence or effect. Disconcerting as it is to think that a system so constitutionally unsound has monumentally endured, the Court urges the people and its co-stewards in government to look forward with the optimism of change and the awareness of the past. At a time of great civic unrest and vociferous public debate, the
9 The Decision, page 35. 10 Ibid.
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Court fervently hopes that its Decision today, while it may not purge all the wrongs of society nor bring back what has been lost, guides this nation to the path forged by the Constitution so that no one may heretofore detract from its cause nor stray from its course. After all, this is the Court‘s bounden duty and no other’s. “WHEREFORE, the petitions are PARTLY GRANTED. In view of the constitutional violations discussed in this Decision, the Court hereby declares as UNCONSTITUTIONAL: (a) the entire 2013 PDAF Article; (b) all legal provisions of past and present Congressional Pork Barrel Laws, such as the previous PDAF and CDF Articles and the various Congressional Insertions, which authorize/d legislators—whether individually or collectively organized into committees—to intervene, assume or participate in any of the various post-enactment stages of the budget execution, such as but not limited to the areas of project identification, modification and revision of project identification, fund release and/or fund realignment, unrelated to the power of congressional oversight; (c) all legal provisions of past and present Congressional Pork Barrel Laws, such as the previous PDAF and CDF Articles and the various Congressional Insertions, which confer/red personal, lump-sum allocations to legislators from which they are able to fund specific projects which they themselves determine; (d) all informal practices of similar import and effect, which the Court similarly deems to be acts of grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction x x x.”11 14. In sum, the SC outlawed the PDAF or “congressional pork barrel”
because it violates separation of powers, non-delegability of legislative power, and the President’s power to veto items in an appropriations law; impairs public accountability; and subverts genuine local autonomy. These principles for democratic government and transparent management of the people’s money are diluted if not altogether defeated however way pork is cooked and served to lawmakers, “whether through formal measures written into the law or informal practices institutionalized in government agencies.”12
15. The Decision also recognizes that congressional pork perpetuates
political patronage, citing recent and not-so-recent history—“Over the decades, ‘pork’ funds in the Philippines have increased tremendously, owing in no small part to previous Presidents who reportedly used the ‘Pork Barrel’ in order to gain congressional support.”13 Adds Justice Arturo Brion on his separate concurring opinion:
“A lump sum appropriation like the PDAF cannot and should not pass Congress unless the Executive and the Legislative branches collude, in which case, the turn of this Court to be an active constitutional player in the budget
11 The Decision. Emphases supplied. 12 The Decision, page 43. 13 The Decision, pages 17-18. Citations omitted and emphases supplied.
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process comes into play. The PDAF, as explained in the Opinions of Justice[s] Carpio and Bernabe, is a prime example of a lump sum appropriation that, over the years, for reasons beneficial to both branches of government, have successfully negotiated the congressional legislative process, to the detriment of the general public.
x x x
“[C]urrent practices [prove] that Congress has given him [the President] his own pork barrel—generally, lump sum funds that he can utilize at his discretion without passing through the congressional mill and without meaningful congressional scrutiny. As I have stated, this is a constitutionally anomalous practice that requires Court intervention as the budgetary partners will allow matters to remain as they are unless externally restrained by legally binding actions. “Congress, for its part, is given significant authority to decide on the projects and activities that will take place, and to allocate funds for these national undertakings. It has not at all complained about the loss of its budgeting prerogatives to the President; it appeared to have surrendered these without resistance as it has been given its share in budget implementation as the current PDAF findings show. Thus, what confronts the Court is a situation where two partners happily scratch each other’s back in the pork barrel system, although the Constitution prohibits, or at the very least, limits the practice.”14
16. Two days after the Decision was handed down, the Aquino
administration through Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio “Sonny” Coloma Jr. said that the administration “will comply with the decision of the Supreme Court (SC) declaring the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) unconstitutional.”15
17. A month after the decision was handed down, the Aquino administration enacted the General Appropriations Act for 2014 (2014 GAA).16 His administration branded it a “pork-less budget,” because the PDAF item was deleted. The administration explained that sum of the amounts from the P24.25-billion item were “realigned,” at the instance of legislators, to other items in several agencies.
18. Of these “realignments,” a total of P20,761,644,000 are allotted
for new programs of the Departments of Health (DOH), Labor and Employment (DOLE), and Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), and Public Works and
14 Justice Brion’s separate opinion to the Decision, pages 9 and 11. Emphases on the original. 15 Aquino government to comply with the decision of the Supreme Court declaring the Priority Development Assistance Fund unconstitutional posted in http://www.pcoo.gov.ph/archives2013/nov21.htm Last accessed on 10 August 2014. 16 Republic Act 10633
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Highways (DPWH); the Commission on Higher Education (CHED); and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA). These amounts are the “House pork,” to wit:
IMPLEMENTING AGENCY PROGRAM
AMOUNT (in ‘000 Pesos)
DOH Assistance to Indigent Patients - “for hospitalization and the grant of assistance to indigent and poor patients” (Special Provision [SP] 8)17
3,193,950
DOLE Government Internship Program (GIP) and Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged Workers “TUPAD” Project - “for the payment of stipend of beneficiaries equivalent to seventy five percent (75%) of the existing minimum wage in the area” - “for the payment of wages of displaced workers resulting from weather and regulatory shocks and internal conflict during their short-term employment under the TUPAD Project” (SP 8)18
1,022,000
TESDA Special Training for Employment Program - “for the conduct of community-based specialty training for employment” (SP 4)19
1,022,000
DSWD Crisis Intervention Program - “to provide financial assistance to individuals and families in crisis situations” (SP 4)20
4,090,000
DPWH Regional and Local Infrastructure Program - “for the construction and rehabilitation of the following local infrastructures: a.) Local Roads and Bridges; b.) Classrooms and Academic Buildings; c.) Multi-Purpose Buildings; and d.) Levels 2 and 3 Water Supply Systems” (SP 8)21
7,309,494
CHED Scholarship Program - “for the grant of scholarship assistance to deserving students” (SP 3)22
4,124,200
TOTAL HOUSE PORK 20,761,644
19. The SPs covering the programs funded by House pork have the same provisos ostensibly intended to prevent a repeat of the Napoles scam, including a condition that the beneficiary shall first comply with requirements
17 2014 GAA, page 407. 18 Ibid, page 458. 19 Ibid, page 477. 20 Ibid, page 553. 21 Ibid, page 508. 22Ibid, pages 649-650.
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of the agency and the school or hospital, an authority for the agency to use up to 1% of the fund for administrative costs, an authority for the agency to engage a third party agency or organization to monitor the program’s implementation, a ban on delegation or transfer of funds to CSOs, and a condition that the program’s implementation shall be subject to guidelines to be issued by the agency.
20. These programs were not among those in the proposed budget of the President for 2014.23 Neither were they deliberated upon by the House of Representatives as part of the General Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2014.24 Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, Jr. also admitted that “the funds are not part of their regular programs.”25 These SPs were added only after the General Appropriations Bill went past the Lower House and the promulgation of Belgica, when it became glaring that retention of PDAF will be not only be unpopular but illegal.
21. Senators, for their part, “realigned” their “Senate pork,”
amounting to a total of P1,794,500,000 to the following Special Purpose Funds and line agencies:
SENATOR SPECIAL PURPOSE FUND OR AGENCY AUGMENTED
AMOUNT (in million pesos)
A. Cayetano Calamity Fund 200.00 P. Cayetano Calamity Fund 200.00 Santiago Calamity Fund 200.00 Ejercito Calamity Fund 200.00 Recto Calamity Fund 200.00 Estrada Local Government Support Fund:
Lla-lo, Cagayan LGSF: Caloocan LGSF: Manila
50.00
50.00 100.00
Lapid DPWH DOH DSWD
193.00 5.00 2.00
Revilla DPWH DOH UP System
84.50 75.00 35.00
Trillanes PNP Philippine Army Philippine Navy CHED TESDA
7.40 27.95 22.00 36.20
4.00
23 Or the 2014 National Expenditure Program. 24 House Bill 2630. 25 ‘Pork’ still working for lawmakers, Abad: What’s wrong with political patronage? by Salaverria, Leila B., Philippine Daily Inquirer, 6 March 2014 (http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/582716/pork-still-working-for-lawmakers. Last accessed on 10 August 2014.)
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DOH 102.45 1,794.50
22. Explaining the realignments, Abad told the Senate Committee on
Finance that the realigned funds are for scholarships under state universities and the Commission on Higher Education (20%); employment under DOLE and TESDA (10%); medical assistance under the DOH (15%); “assistance to persons in crisis” under the DSWD (20%), and local infrastructure projects under the DPWH (34%). He also stated for the record that P24.5 million was allocated per congressman per district albeit “for specific projects only.”26
23. It should be noted that the appropriations for DOH, less the
“realignments” at the instance of the three senators, amount to nearly P10.5 million for each of the 289 Members of the House of Representatives.27 Appropriations for DOLE and TESDA amount to nearly P3.5 million for each House Member; for DSWD, P14 million; and CHED, also P14 million.
24. The said amounts are corroborated by a form28 circulated among
House Members, after approval of the 2014 budget.
25. Pursuant to the said Special Provisions, the DSWD issued in February 2014 Memorandum Circular No. 2,29 the implementing guidelines for the Crisis Intervention Program.30 Wisely, it does not mention “congressman/woman” and “senator,” nor indicate that he or she could have a say in pinpointing the beneficiaries of the financial, medical transportation, or burial assistance or any of the services under the program. Unwisely, the memo was routed to the offices of all congressmen/women by DSWD employees, who practically just tendered to congressional staff the memo contained in an unmarked brown envelope.31
26. Officials of the said agencies, including their Secretaries, also held several meetings with legislators to orient the latter on how to access the funds in these programs. One such meeting was conducted on 20 May 2014, at the Andaya Hall, South Wing Building of the House of Representatives, by Dr. Janette Garin, Undersecretary for the Women, Children, and Family Cluster of the DOH.
26 Abad: PDAF realigned in 2014 budget, Corpuz, Niña, ABS-CBN News, 23 October 2013 (http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/10/23/13/abad-pdaf-realigned-2014-budget. Last accessed on 10 August 2014.) 27 At the time the 2014 GAA was passed. 28 Annex A. 29 Annex B. 30 Found in the 2014 GAA as part of the additional P4,090,769,000 given to DSWD (amount represents the difference between the 2014 GAB approved by the House of Representatives and the 2014 GAB approved by the bicameral conference committee). 31 Affidavit of Ms. Andrea Karla Guray, administrative staff of ACT Teachers Party-List Rep. Antonio Tinio. Annex C.
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27. Undersecretary Garin conducted the meeting upon a letter of invitation to House Members “to discuss the Medical Assistance Program.”32 It was attended by a number of House Members and congressional staff.
28. The Medical Assistance Program is the program designed by DOH
to implement the abovementioned Special Provision 8 of the DOH budget in the 2014 GAA, with appropriated funds amounting to over P3.1 billion.
29. Undersecretary Garin made a presentation on the guidelines then
recently signed by Secretary Enrique Ona for the Medical Assistance Program,33 using a slide presentation,34 then entertained questions from the audience. An audio recording of the meeting and a partial transcript are attached to this Complaint.35
30. The following are several things of note in the briefing:
a. Undersecretary Garin is there as representative of the DOH. She also said that “this whole program [MAP] was transferred to my office.” b. The DOH drafted the guidelines for the MAP in consultation with the House Members, amending them three times. There was a lot of confusion among the Members caused by “lapses” on the part of DOH, because “the guidelines that was given to you was in contrary to the initial guidelines that I presented to the Speaker and the officers of the House.” c. The DOH recognizes that the funds earmarked for the Medical Assistance Program are not DOH’s funds but the House Members’,36 with repeated references to the assistance fund for indigents being the “congressional fund” and “your funds,”37 and the guarantee letter as “tulong ni Congressman, tulong po ng opisina.” d. The DOH acknowledges the authority of the House Member to identify indigent patients38 and to determine whether persons will
32 Letter of invitation from the Office of the Undersecretary to Rep. Antonio L. TInio (Annex D). 33 Annex E, distributed during the briefing. 34 Annex F 35 Annexes G and H, respectively. The recording is authenticated by Mr. Romel Guisinga (Annex I). 36 USEC GARIN: “So, the decision of the Department is to do away with all walk-in patients because in the first place it was made clear to us that these funds are not DOH funds but are actually funds of Congressmen who are there to assist their constituents.” 37 On one occasion, Undersecretary Garin said, “For the DOH-retained facilities, mali naman po talaga, lalo na ‘pag sinasabi nila na ‘Uy, sorry po, wala po ditong pondo yung Congressman niyo’. Hindi po talaga dapat sabihin ‘yun.” 38USEC GARIN: “If in case nagpadala kayo ng pasyente, pagka-padala niyo ng pasyente, sinabi na ‘Wala po ditong pondo yung opisina niyo,’ which usually happens. This is something that we admit should not happen but unfortunately the process of requesting the funds and downloading it takes a lot of time.”
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qualify as such.39 Undersecretary Garin mentioned that the DOH in certain instances can issue a guarantee letter (GL) for a person asking for medical assistance with just one phone call from the House Member.40 She also assured the audience that their referred patients are guaranteed of assistance—“We will not let the patient wait. We will not let your office wait.”—and that the GLs will be “good as cash…kumbaga parang SM gift check.” e. The signed guidelines did away with documentary requirements of proving one’s qualification for the assistance.41 f. The DOH has assigned “focal persons” to be on call for the processing of guarantee letters from House Members, planning to install at least three personnel so that there is someone to assist referred patients “24/7.” A list of focal persons per hospital was also distributed by electronic mail the day after the briefing.42 Undersecretary Garin also said they have trained enough staff, and will add more in the future, to accommodate the requests of all House Members.43 g. There are three procedures for the implementation of the MAP.
i. For DOH-retained hospitals with downloaded funds:
39 USEC GARIN: “Okay, so the qualifications will be a recommendation from the MAP officials, and who are the MAP officials? Kayo ‘yan, these are the Congressman or your designated personnel.” 40 USEC GARIN: “So, the proposal that we have in this case [when the funds have not yet downloaded to the House Member’s chosen hospital] kung saka-sakaling pagdating [ng pasyente], wala diyaan, walang pondo ýung office or whatever, we have a directory that will be given to you and that will be e-mailed to all your offices. In that directory, there are two persons in-charge of all hospitals, so makikita ninyo dun sa directory, andidito yung mga pangalan ng mga hospitals and then kung sino yung contact person na tatawagan ninyo. So, for any problem, you immediately call, text or e-mail the persons in-charge of that hospital and automatically they will issue a guarantee letter direct to your office and direct to the hospital.” 41 USEC GARIN: “Now, on the implementing mechanism, we also learned that because it was going together with PAU or the Public Assistance Unit of the Department of Health, nagkaroon ng maraming requirements so on the provision of Medical Assistance there were requirements as to the original complete prescription for medicines and medical supplies, the original laboratory request, the original physician’s order request form and the statement of account, all of this, so for your previous guidelines under Section 4 (B) that whole paragraph has been deleted so we, the new guidelines that you have now, it’s totally deleted.” 42 Electronic mail from the Public Assistance Unit to the Office of Rep. Tinio with the subject “final directory” sent on May 21, 2014 (screenshot, Annex J). The e-mail contained a copy of the slide presentation and the list of focal persons as attachments. 43 REP. SY-ALVARADO: “Yun po bang ating available personnel in your office ho can accommodate all congressmen’s concerns with regards to the sending of guarantee letters kasi po katulad lamang pos a aking distrito po ay napakarami po na nabibigyan namin dati ng guarantee letter e kung minsan po animnapu, minsan po isandaang pasyente x x x E kung kaming lahat e halos three hundred congressman kami, can they all accommodate all of us po for that particular thing?” USEC GARIN: “[W]hen this program came in and initially we thought it will be assigned to my office, we trained people x x x Actually ni-retrieve namin yung lahat na trinain, we started calling them, we had a meeting last week, dinagdagan ng tao, so makakayanan po nila. And ahm, if there will be a bottleneck at some point of time, nagdadagdag po kami nang nagdadagdag ng tao. But for now, people who were facilitating before that’s a total of 6 or 7 people ahm, now they are 14 and 21. So yun po situation po. For sure they can accommodate everybody.”
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- The hospitals provides the medical assistance upon request made directly by the House Member to the hospital
ii. For DOH-retained hospitals without downloaded funds: - Requests are made to the MAP unit, which issues a guarantee letter to the patient. The GL is presented to the hospital cashier, which then provides assistance on behalf of the hospital. A bill is sent to the MAP Unit for verification and payment.
iii. For non-DOH government health facilities: - Same for DOH-retained hospitals without downloaded funds.
h. Names of DOH officials are deleted in the GL in recognition of the “political points.”44 The signatory in the old GL, Assistant Secretary Jimmy Lagajid, was removed so that there will be no doubt in the minds of beneficiaries as to “who facilitated the funds,”45 i.e., the House Representative. i. The DOH has now banned from receiving the assistance walk-in patients who go straight to hospitals without going to a congressman or congresswoman’s district office first.46
j. The Undersecretary also mentioned that any excess from the GLs can be used for “take-home” medicines.47
44 USEC GARIN: “We also understand na yung guarantee letter na unang nirelease, medyo yung format, I mean it’s good, it’s okay. Unfortunately, the format creates a lot of questions kasi nga parang it’s, it’s an indigency program of the DOH. Nawawalan ngayon ng, let`s admit it, the political points in, in the case of the office requesting it kasi ang nakapirma dun is Asec. Lagajid and it was placed there na hindi pwedeng i-honor pag Saturday and Sunday. Andudun din yung nakalagay na it’s charged in the office of the Secretary. So all of these were deleted. We will be giving you the new format of the guarantee letter.” 45 USEC GARIN: “Tinanggal na rin namin yung pumipirma, si ASec Jimmy Lagaji. ASec Jimmy is, kaya siya nandiyadiyan before, kasi siya yung head ng PAU Office and he is the HEA of Secretary Ona. We also admit na hindi nga maganda tingnan na meron ibibigay kayo tapos makikita ng pasyente na ‘ASec Lagajid’ kasi nawawalan ngayon ng points na totoo naman na kayo ang nag-facilitate ng pondo.” 46 USEC GARIN: “Ito palang dalawang forms [from the PAU] because it’s a PAU or a Public Assistance Unit Office, yung isang form na pinapadala sa inyo parang yung mga walk-in patient na gustong magpatulong. The PAU office writes a recommendation and sends it to your office. So medyo hindi maganda kasi parang ang feeling tuloy ng pasyente nagpunta siya sa DOH, ngayon itutulak namin sa office ninyo. ‘Pag hindi agad na-entertain ng office ninyo, marami pang salita. So the decision of the department is to do away with all walk-in patients because in the first place it was made clear to us that these funds are not DOH funds but are actually funds of Congressmen who are there to assist their constituents. So the referral letter if ever you receive one coming from DOH, don’t mind that but we already gave instruction. I mean I personally gave instructions last week to do away with all of those. Kasi hindi pi-puwedeng yung mga kapag may lumalapit dun ire-refer namin sa inyo. You know best and you know better sino ang nanganagilangan ng tulong sa distrito ninyo. Isa pa, hindi rin talaga namin alam kung constituent ninyo because they can always say they’re from this district, they’re from this area tapos hindi naman.” 47 USEC GARIN: “Now, meron ding mga tanong yung billing amount daw, hindi nagko-coincide sa requested amount sa guarantee letter. We already gave instructions for the hospitals, kung kunwari ang pinabigay ninyong tulong is four thousand or let’s say five thousand. Yung billing niya kasi nabawasan pa pala ng Philhealth or whatever naging let’s say three thousand five hundred na lang para hindi na tumagal, pakuha ninyo na lang ng take-home meds niya. Kasi meron namang mga gamot din na inuuwi sa bahay so pakuha na lang dun. Idadagdag na lang nila sa bill yun. The hospital wouldn’t mind as long as the amount stipulated in
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k. Since the 2014 GAA states that the funds are for medical assistance only, medical missions are not allowed. The Undersecretary then suggested ways of going around the prohibition. She also suggested for Congress to include medical missions in the enabling SP for the DOH funds in the 2015 budget.48 l. That issuances and instructions are released to offices and hospitals of DOH to implement the MAP in accordance to the above.
31. During the open forum, mechanisms used by the DSWD for its
House pork were revealed by a House Member who said that he “was able to talk to Secretary Dinky [Corazon Soliman].” According to him, DSWD’s assistance fund is identified by the local government unit chosen by the legislator:
“Ang napagkasunduan doon namin regarding yung situations like us na malayo kami sa regional office, malayo kami sa mga regional hospitals or national agencies e ida-download po nila, meron na po silang ginawang MOA from the Central Office pipirma yung regional director ng DSWD at ida-download po yung pondo, let’s say 12 million. Sabi ni Secretary, ‘Cong, kahit kalahati lang muna kasi masyadong malaki.’ So yung kalahati po ida-download lang sa local government na gusto mo na mag-iimplement ng programa ng DSWD at yung provincial government na yun, it will be signed by the governor and the regional director of the Department. Yung pondo na yun, ang responsible na po ay yung LGU.” 32. On 13 February 2014, the Philippine Information Agency (PIA)
Region XII issued a press release entitled “DOLE 12, solons partner for employment, government internship projects.” It states that, together with the Department of Labor and Employment-Region XII, the eight congressional representatives of Region XIII are “setting up plans for the implementation of programs and activities for funds coursed through the agency.”
33. DOLE Regional Director Ofelia Domingo confirmed the P3.5-
million allotment per congressional district for beneficiaries to be identified by the congressmen under the Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged Workers or the TUPAD program and the Government Internship Program.
the guarantee letter will be the amount will be the amount that the hospital will honor. If the bill is like five thousand and the guarantee letter is four thousand five hundred then they have to pay for the 500 kasi medyo mahirap silang i-ano...” 48 USEC. GARIN: “Ay just last…last concern pala. Ang daming tumatawag tungkol sa procurement of medicines. While we would like to support that, our dilemma is that our hands are tied because in the funds that were approved, naka-specify kasi siya na hospital assistance. May we just request na kung pu-pwede for the next year, specified dun na puwede yung procurement of medicines for medical missions because as of now, DBM does not allow us…So yun naman yung medyo dilemma namin but then if you have medical missions, these are like out-patient, you can group them together like oh you can have a diabetes clinic or you can have a hypertensive clinic and then the laboratories and the medicines that they will be using can be charged to the hospital. So, pu-pwede po ‘yung ganun.”
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Domingo also cited that she met with the solons in early January “to inform the latter of the availability of the said budget and set the initial steps for the required work plan.”
34. It will be recalled that TUPAD and GIP have been provided with
appropriations amounting to P1.02 billion as per Special Provision 8 of the DOLE budget in the 2014 GAA. The abovementioned allocation of P3.5 million per congressional district are to be funded from this appropriation.
35. A copy of this article as it appeared in the website of the PIA
Region XII is attached to this Complaint as Annex K.49 36. Other reports from the DOLE Regions X50 and V51 also confirm the
P3.5-million allocation per district reflected in the form circulated after the approval of the 2014 GAA. These reports from official sources indicate that the DOLE Regional Offices recognize the entitlement of district representatives to pinpoint beneficiaries for the GIP and TUPAD Program. The press release for DOLE X approved for release by Regional Director Atty. Alan M. Macaraya said that “Interested applicants are advised to visit their respective Congressional Districts Offices.”
37. On 22 April 2014, lists of focal persons for DOH, DOLE, and CHED
were provided by the Office of the Speaker to House Members.52 The lists contain the names and contact numbers of (1) assigned staff in each of the 136 covered hospitals for the MHCAP, (2) focal persons for the GIP and TUPAD programs of DOLE, and (3) CHED regional directors for its scholarship program.53
38. On 4 August 2014, the House Committee on Appropriations
conducted a hearing on the CHED’s implementation of their scholarship programs as mandated in Special Provision 3 of the CHED budget in the 2014 GAA, with appropriations amounting to P4.1 billion. According to Chairperson Isidro Ungab, the hearing is “an oversight committee hearing x x x We can act as an oversight body especially for x x x public funds.”
39. The meeting was not announced in general as is usually done
following the Rules of the House. Neither were the regular and ex-officio members of the Committee on Appropriations given notice that it will be held
49 Taken from http://r12.pia.gov.ph/index.php?article=1611392260408. Last accessed on 10 August 2014. 50 A copy of this article is attached to this complaint as Annex L. Taken from http://ro10.dole.gov.ph/default.php?retsamlakygee=356&resource=cfe6055d2e0503be378bb63449ec7ba6. Last accessed on 10 August 2014. 51 A copy of this article is attached to this complaint as Annex M. http://www.bicolmail.com/2012/?p=13798. Last accessed on 10 August 2014. 52 Affidavit of Ms. Guray, Note 31. 53 Annex A of the affidavit of Ms. Guray.
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on that day and its agenda. Rep. Tinio was informed of the same only by chance, when he heard a fellow congressman mention it at a hearing of another committee, and was thus able to attend it.
40. A member of Tinio’s staff also attended the hearing and made an
audio recording of a portion of the proceedings.54 41. Present during the hearing were Chairperson Patricia Licuanan
and Director Isabel Inlayo from the CHED, Director Cristy Clasara from the DBM, and State Auditor Julieta Escaño and Director Sofia Gemora from the Commission on Audit (COA), as well as staff of these departments together with House Members and their staff.
42. During the hearing, some disgruntled legislators present made
Chairperson Licuanan explain why their lists of recommended scholars were not being funded by CHED.
43. From the answers of Chairperson Licuanan, it was clear that she
knew that due to the Decision, legislators are now prohibited from taking part in the implementation of CHED’s scholarship programs, like they did under the PDAF system.55 She explained that the COA on December 2013 issued the agency a negative audit observation.56
44. Chairperson Licuanan acknowledged said that due to the Supreme
Court decision on PDAF, some of the Regional Directors treated the P14 million allocation-per district as additional scholarships that they could award to qualified applicants from the general public. Pertaining to the earmarked funds from the realigned PDAF, Chairperson Licuanan said that “We told them [the Regional Directors] what the restrictions were. That actually, this is not true, you do not have P14 million per district na extra. This will really be for the congressmen.”
45. Chairperson Licuanan also explained that CHED publicized that
there are available scholarship slots, and thus opened the P4.1 billion-worth of scholarships to all applicants—but assured the legislators that CHED would give priority to the list of beneficiaries submitted by lawmakers:
54 Audio recording of the hearing (Annex N), attested by affidavit of Atty. Maneeka Asistol Sarza, Legislative Staff of Rep. Antonio L. Tinio (Annex O), with a transcript of the recording (Annex P). 55 SEC. LICUANAN: “I know I don’t have the refinements of whether it’s oversight or whatever but the fact is, my understanding is that, well you used the term earlier, ‘illegal post intervention’. So in other words, you make the law, you don’t implement it.” 56 SEC. LICUANAN: “We have a previous encounter with the Commission on Audit. They had a very serious audit observation levelled to us, report to us that essentially, the way we were handling some of the PDAF that came to us as well as the congressional scholarships we give out was different from our usual scholarships which follow the same set of CHED guidelines.
“That was even before PDAF became an issue. We said, all right, in which case, we will make sure that the same guidelines prevail for all the scholarships that we handle, including the congressional ones.
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“So that was what we were doing. But the system, I guess, take time. x x x That’s [the public announcement of available scholarship slots] our duty. We had a lot of grants, we have to make this public. But in our adjustments already internally, we said that priority would be given to the recommended—the listahan of the congressmen.”
x x x “Finally, I had to say, “Okay, people, this is the way it has to be. I know this was supposed to be illegal. Dapat wala na, but actually, meron pa.” 46. The Secretary added, “I am also…accepting the political reality
that this is PDAF.”
47. From these facts, Aquino’s impeachable offenses of betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution are evident.
FIRST IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE:
BETRAYAL OF PUBLIC TRUST
Aquino betrayed the public trust by perpetuating congressional pork through informal practices in defiance of the ruling of the Supreme Court, to the
detriment of public interest
Aquino also betrayed the public trust by breaking his oath that he will faithfully and conscientiously fulfil his duties as President and preserve and defend the Constitution, execute our laws, and do justice to every person
“Betrayal of public trust”
48. On 30 June 2010, Aquino swore to all Filipinos thus: “Ako si Benigno Aquino III. Matimtim kong pinanunumpaan na tutuparin ko nang buong katapatan at sigasig ang aking mga tungkulin bilang Pangulo ng Pilipinas, pangangalagaan at ipagtatanggol ang kanyang Konstitusyon, ipatutupad ang mga batas nito, magiging makatarungan sa bawat tao, at itatalaga ang aking sarili sa paglilingkod sa Bansa. Kasihan nawa ako ng Diyos.”57 49. The SC has defined “betrayal of public trust” as “acts which are
just short of being criminal but constitute gross faithlessness against public trust, tyrannical abuse of power, inexcusable negligence of duty, favoritism, and gross exercise of discretionary powers.”58 They need not amount to 57 Seksyon 5, Artikulo VII, Saligang Batas ng Republika ng Pilipinas. 58 Gonzales v. Office of the President, G.R. No. 196231, 4 September 2012
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criminal offenses, but their commission proves that the public officer is unable to comply with his or her oath of office and refuses to serve the people.
50. According to the SC, the ground is “broad enough to cover any
violation of the oath of office,”59 unless the same is attended by “human error and good faith.”60
51. The framers of the Constitution gave examples of acts constituting
betrayal of public trust, namely, betrayal of public interest, inexcusable negligence of duty, tyrannical abuse of power, breach of official duty by malfeasance or misfeasance, cronyism, and favoritism, among others. By the manner and degree that they are committed, these acts prejudice public interest and tend to bring the office into disrepute.61
52. By perpetuating congressional pork through informal practices in defiance of the ruling of the Supreme Court, Aquino violated his oath of office and betrayed public trust through wilful breach of official duty by malfeasance.
53. This offense to the people is compounded or made graver by his
act of deceiving the public, whom he led into believing that he will comply with the law against congressional pork and eliminate it once and for all, while secretly perpetuating it through informal arrangements between Congress and the departments under his command.
54. He knowingly, deliberately violates the Decision, which has the force and effect of a law enacted by Congress, by authorizing his Cabinet secretaries who head the agencies handling the funds formerly known as PDAF to set up informal practices enabling House Members to intervene, assume, or participate in the implementation of certain programs, including the exercise of discretion in the use of agency funds, during the budget execution stage.
55. Specifically, these programs are:
a. Assistance to Indigent Patients of the DOH,
59 Gonzales citing the Proceedings of the 1986 Constitutional Commission:
MR. REGALADO: [T]his is with respect to Section 2, on the grounds for impeachment, and I quote: “…culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, other high crimes, graft and corruption or betrayal of public trust.” Just for the record, what would the Committee envision as a betrayal of the public trust which is not otherwise covered by the other terms antecedent thereto? MR. ROMULO: I think, if I may speak for the Committee and subject to further comments of Commissioner de los Reyes [the proponent of the addition of betrayal of public trust as a ground], the concept is that this is a catch-all phrase. Really, it refers to his oath of office, in the end that the idea of a public trust is connected with the oath of office of the officer, and if he violates that oath of office, then he has betrayed that trust.
60 Gonzales. 61 Proceedings of the 1986 Constitutional Commission. Commissioner De los Reyes
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b. Government Internship Program (GIP) and Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged Workers “TUPAD” Project of the DOLE,
c. Special Training for Employment Program of TESDA, d. Crisis Intervention Program of the DSWD, and e. Scholarship Program of the CHED.
56. Based on implementing guidelines subsequently issued by the
DOH, the Assistance to Indigent Patients is being implemented as the Medical Health Care Assistance Program62 or, as Undersecretary Garin refers to it, the Medical Assistance Program.63
57. In the case of CHED, its scholarship program is essentially being
implemented as the “Special Study Grant Program for Congressional Districts.”64 Hidden congressional pork
58. The prohibited intervention of House Members in the implementation of these programs include the post-enactment identification of localities, hospitals, and schools in the case of DOH, CHED, and TESDA funds; the assignment of amounts that will be earmarked for and downloaded to each; and the identification of beneficiaries and the amount of financial assistance to be extended to them.
59. This system is no different from the system of “soft projects” and
their manner of implementation under the outlawed PDAF. 60. However, the whole system under the old PDAF is in black and
white—embodied in the Special Provisions for the PDAF item in the GAA, administrative issuances from the DBM and the implementing agencies, and memoranda of agreement between House Members and implementing agencies.
61. With the Belgica Decision, these written or formal practices have
now been prohibited. The PDAF item and any reference to it are not found in the 2014 GAA; neither can they be seen in the guidelines issued by the six mentioned agencies to implement their respective programs.
62 Note 34. 63 USEC. GARIN: “So first and foremost in behalf of the Department of Health, allow me to apologize for all the chaos and confusions that the Medical Assistance Program has created.” 64 As mentioned by Region X. See Note 63.
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62. However, the SC foresaw that it will be possible to perpetuate the PDAF through informal practices, and thus likewise prohibited “all informal practices of similar import and effect”—meaning, even unwritten practices by which lawmakers are allowed to participate in any manner in the implementation of these programs. These practices will be difficult to document as they leave no paper trail explicitly acknowledging the entitlement of legislators to these funds and their role in the implementation of the programs.
63. Informal practices in the PDAF and PDAF-like schemes necessarily
require the cooperation between the department and the legislator. It will be necessary, then, to establish the linkages between them and the protocols they use in the course of this unlawful cooperation.
64. Such linkages and protocols are sufficiently described in (1) the
hearing of the House Committee on Appropriations on the CHED’s implementation of its scholarship programs, (2) the briefing by Undersecretary Garin with House Members and their staff, both conducted within the very grounds of the House of Representatives, and (3) the public statements of the Regional Directors of DOLE. As admitted and acknowledged by Aquino’s cabinet secretaries and other executive officials, the congressional pork barrel continues to exist despite the ruling against it
65. Aquino, after the Decision announced to the public, through his communications secretary, that his administration “will comply with the decision of the Supreme Court (SC) declaring the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) unconstitutional.” From the very words of the announcement, plus (1) the fact that his administration did not move for the reconsideration of the ruling and (2) his earlier announcement that “it is time to abolish the PDAF,” Aquino had no purpose other than to mislead the public into believing that they have seen the last of congressional pork barrel.
66. However, congressional pork is really not gone but has merely
gone into hiding, with the full knowledge and under the instructions of Aquino. This is evident from the admissions of his cabinet secretaries and regional directors of at least three agencies to which the House pork was realigned.
67. Faced with the negative COA observation and the Belgica
Decision, Chairperson Licuanan admitted during the Appropriations Committee hearing that CHED had to go through the motions of publicly announcing the availability of scholarship slots and applying their general
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guidelines on scholarships, but to her, the entitlement of lawmakers to name the scholars remain—“But in our adjustments already internally, we said that priority would be given to the recommended—the listahan of the congressmen.” Most telling are her following statements:
a. “I know this [giving priority to lawmakers’ lists of referred scholars] was supposed to be illegal. Dapat wala na, but actually, meron pa.” b. “I am also accepting the political reality that this is PDAF.”
68. For her part, Undersecretary Garin clearly stated that the P3.2
billion MAP funds for medical assistance are the funds of lawmakers: “So the decision of the Department is to do away with all walk-in patients because in the first place it was made clear to us that these funds are not DOH funds but are actually funds of Congressmen who are there to assist their constituents.”
69. “Additionally, she made it clear that it is the lawmakers who will
identify the beneficiaries of medical assistance: “Okay, so the qualifications will be a recommendation from the MAP officials, and who are the MAP officials? Kayo yan, these are the Congressman or your designated personnel.”
70. The Regional Director of DOLE-XII, admitted in her press release
that DOLE-XII is implementing the GIP and TUPAD programs in close coordination with the eight congressional representatives of her region, even to the point of inviting the latter to prepare their “work plans” which will be the “basis for the release of funds.” In the case of
71. Considering the scope and significance of the mechanisms
described, the admissions of these officials from three agencies under Aquino’s watch betray the Executive Branch’s—Aquino’s—design to institute systems that allows the treatment of funds under its management as the lawmakers’, to be disbursed per these politicians’ discretion and not the agencies’.
As admitted and acknowledged by Aquino’s cabinet secretaries and other executive officials, the agencies handling the House pork still set aside personal lump sums for House Members which they can tap and disburse according to their discretion
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72. Also admitted were the specific earmarked amounts which were tucked into the five agencies after the “realignment” of PDAF. From the forum conducted by Undersecretary Garin, the “closed-door” meeting of the Committee on Appropriations with Secretary Licuanan, and the press statements issued by the three DOLE Regions, the amounts of House pork handled by DOH, CHED, and DOLE, are proven to be P3.19 billion, P4.1 billion, and P1.02 billion, respectively. Also admitted are the allocations of each House Member: P10.5 million, P14 million, and P3.5 million, respectively.
73. As shown by the meetings and public statements, the
implementing agencies consider these per-district allocations as personal lump sums of each legislator—a lawmaker recommends or refers beneficiaries to the agencies, and the latter is bound by such recommendation and referral.
74. Chairperson Licuanan admitted that she informed her Regional
Directors of the restrictions against legislators naming the scholars post-GAA, “But actually, this is not true, you do not have P14 million per district na extra. This will really be for the congressmen.”
75. “We had a lot of grants, we have to make this public. But in our
adjustments already internally, we said that priority would be given to the recommended—the listahan of the congressmen.”
76. Undersecretary Garin also proved this entitlement granted to the
legislators: a. “Okay, so the qualifications will be a recommendation from the MAP officials, and who are the MAP officials? Kayo ‘yan, these are the Congressman or your designated personnel.” b. “We have a directory that will be given to you and that will be e-mailed to all your offices. In that directory, there are two persons in-charge of all hospitals, so makikita ninyo dun sa directory, andidito yung mga pangalan ng mga hospitals and then kung sino yung contact person na tatawagan ninyo. So, for any problem, you immediately call, text or e-mail the persons in-charge of that hospital and automatically they will issue a guarantee letter direct to your office and direct to the hospital.” c. “We will not let the patient wait. We will not let your office wait.” 77. DOLE-XII Regional Director Domingo stated, “The decision as to
how much the legislators would allocate for emergency funds and the Government Internship Program (GIP) depends on the congressional representative.” This, after she held “a meeting with the eight legislators in
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SOCCKSARGEN or their representatives to inform the latter of the availability of the said budget.” Per the approved announcement of DOLE-X Regional Director Atty. Alan M. Macaraya, “Interested applicants are advised to visit their respective Congressional Districts Offices.” Aquino’s cabinet secretaries and other executive officials demonstrated that they have put in place procedures and mobilized a significant amount of personnel and resources to enable lawmakers to exercise illegal post-enactment authority over the programs funded by the House pork
78. The meetings with Secretary Licuanan65 and Undersecretary Garin66 detail the procedures by which their executive agencies allow the exercise by legislators of post-enactment authority beyond oversight. These procedures are enabled through the mobilization of a significant amount of personnel and resources. The public statements of the Regional Directors67 that they involved solons in the formulation of work plans for the GIP and TUPAD Programs and their advice to applicants to visit the district offices of these solons are glaring official admissions of this fact.
79. The mechanisms for CHED essentially consist of its regional offices ostensibly following the general guidelines for all scholarship programs but, following “internal adjustments,” “priority would be given to the recommended—the listahan of the congressmen.”
80. For DOH, the mechanisms involve tremendous resources of the
agency, including personnel in 136 covered hospitals who are on call “24/7” to automatically issue guarantee letters (which are “good as cash”) to patients referred by lawmakers.
81. For DOLE, the mechanisms consist of the granting of slots for
emergency employment or government internship in accordance with the “work plans” set up by the solons.
82. For DSWD, it was shown that Secretary Dinky Soliman herself has
made arrangements with at least one solon to allow him to identify the local governments where the assistance funds will be distributed. This also shows that the DILG is also in on the informal schemes allowing illegal post-enactment intervention.
65 Paragraphs 44 to 46 of this Complaint. 66 Paragraphs 30 to 31 of this Complaint. 67 Paragraphs 32 to 33 of this Complaint.
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83. The innocuous identification by legislators of beneficiaries prior to the enactment of the 2014 GAA, granting but not conceding that they indeed occurred pre-GAA, inevitably extends to the prohibited meddling of individual lawmakers into the functions of the implementing agency post-GAA.
84. The totality of these circumstances show a grand design—across
executive agencies, relating to billions of public monies, and involving at least seven top members of Aquino’s cabinet68—which cannot possibly occur without the knowledge and license of Aquino. This grand design consists of the Executive Branch bending over backwards to allow congressional pork barrel to live on through hidden means—something already prohibited by the law as pronounced by the Supreme Court.
The mechanisms admitted by Aquino’s alter egos and subordinates are necessarily informal—to conceal from the public the persistence of congressional pork barrel and the fact that the Chief Executive is subverting the law and public institutions
85. In the case of CHED, it is the Chairperson of the agency herself—the alter ego of the President—who demonstrated awareness of “the political reality that this is PDAF,” retaining all the infirmities of the old, written system where legislators identify who should receive the funds, to be handed out according to this legislator’s list regardless of the qualifications set by CHED’s guidelines.
86. Also part of the prohibited informal practices is the unwritten
understanding (that is, not in the 2014 GAA, the guidelines, or any of the issuances of CHED) that each House Member has specific earmarked amounts that can be distributed in the form of scholarships, medical or financial assistance, internships, and emergency employment.
87. These informal practices are evidence of Aquino’s bad faith. Any
governmental act, especially one involving billions of public funds, should have a basis and/or proof in writing, considering the state policy of transparency in the management of public resources and accountability of public officers. Nowhere in the guidelines governing the implementation of the MHCAP, for instance, is there an indication that an indigent patient is one who has walked into a solon’s office first before walking into the hospital, or that medical assistance will be surely be issued upon the recommendation of a legislator. The guidelines for CHED’s scholarships have even removed any apparent trace of the old Congressional Special Study Grant Program, and yet, priority is still
68 The five agencies plus DBM and DILG.
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being given to “the listahan of the congressmen,” following CHED’s “internal adjustments.”
88. The culture of recommendation and referral is still occurring
within executive agencies handling House pork despite the absence of written grounds for it. Indeed, there will be no written grounds for it. The Executive Branch is hiding the pork from the public whom he has misled into believing Aquino when he said “Panahon na po upang i-abolish ang PDAF.”
89. Informal practices of dealing with pork do continue to exist in
post-PDAF times, like the informal practices relating to PDAF have persisted and been constantly observed throughout the years.69
90. As the news reports and official government sources above prove,
these concealed practices cannot help but surface, the conspiracy to perpetuate a noxious system mutually beneficial to fellow pork-holders and influence-peddlers cannot be kept hidden. Even hidden under the cloak of executive secrecy, public officials such as Members of the House of Representatives, state auditors, even one of the secretaries handling the implementation of funds which turn out to be still pork will surely come out in the open and express their opposition to pork and its inevitable expenditure for political patronage and matters other than public purposes. With his perpetuation of these informal practices, Aquino is the mastermind behind hidden congressional pork, and is forcing the entire bureaucracy of the involved agencies to implement illegal acts
91. As stated above, Chairperson Licuanan is the alter ego of the President for CHED. Her knowledge of the persistence of PDAF, although in another form, and her agency’s actions in implementing scholarship programs, are likewise the knowledge and actions of Aquino, her principal. The actions of Undersecretary Garin, as they concern affairs with the Congress and relate to billions of pesos in public funds and a major program in which grand resources and personnel of the DOH are mobilized, are also the actions of Aquino.
92. Aquino’s other alter ego, his budget chief Secretary Abad, defends
the “realignments” of legislators and their “duty” to recommend. In addition to the totality of circumstances already detailed, this pig-headed defense of congressional pork shows that Aquino is (1) fully aware that the legislators’ post-enactment authority or their entitlement to particular earmarked funds prohibited by the Decision is alive and oinking in the post-PDAF budget and (2)
69 The Decision, page 43.
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also fully aware of, if not endorsing, the outlawed informal practices going on within his Cabinet. These circumstances are not coincidental but reflect a common, overarching policy to retain a system already outlawed by the SC.
93. In the midst of all these, Aquino has never issued a categorical
directive or mere statement confirming the Decision as to the outlawed participation of lawmakers in program or project implementation and that he will brook no violation of this law under any of the agencies under his leadership on the national and local levels.
94. The statements and acts, including the how-to-access meetings,
are ascribed to the heads of agencies—that is, members of his cabinet and his alter egos—their local alterns, and legislators who are members of his Liberal Party and its coalition. Secondly, these are not incidents isolated in one agency or locality but well-reported, even by Aquino’s own PIA, to be occurring as an open secret in all the agencies above and in the provinces and regions.
95. Being the Chief Executive, no major policy is implemented in the
departments, bureaus, and offices he heads—especially one that is universal to those given the realigned funds and involving a significant amount of public funds—without his knowledge and consent.
96. At the very least, the “take-care clause” makes it Aquino’s duty to
exercise the greatest diligence to ensure that inviting and allowing legislators to refer and recommend projects and beneficiaries in any manner beyond their limited role of oversight do not occur. His denial, therefore, of these informal practices in the face of indisputable reports, granting for the sake of argument that he really does not know what is going on in his agencies, is an admission of negligence in the performance of his duties.
97. While Aquino’s cabinet secretaries are the chief implementors of
hidden congressional pork, those in the entire bureaucracy down to the smallest government employee tasked to secure the secrecy of a purported “closed door meeting” or assigned as a “hospital assigned staff” or focal person for scholarships and internship are forced to commit illegal acts. These rank-and-file officials are under orders to allow legislators to name beneficiaries of programs, long after their role as legislators is done. They are turned into instruments with which Aquino can flout the law. By perpetuating congressional pork through informal practices, Aquino prejudices the public interest
98. The SC through the Decision has prohibited congressional pork
barrel in whatever name and form for being abhorrent to separation of
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powers, non-delegability of legislative power, the President’s veto power, public accountability, and genuine local autonomy. It also echoed the people’s observation that the President and Congress are “happily scratching each other’s back in the pork barrel system,” damaging the public interest in the process. This damage is well known to the public.
99. Well documented—and an open secret—is the nature of
congressional pork as largesse distributed by the President to lawmakers, either to secure their cooperation especially for the executive’s pet bills, or protect him or her from impeachment. Aquino’s immediate successor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, used pork as well as other perks to thwart five impeachment complaints against her since 2005 over strong charges of electoral fraud and other constitutional violations, even as she consistently denied it to progressive legislators critical to her, especially those who supported her impeachment.70
100. As congressional pork is the grease that turns the wheels of
Congress in the direction dictated by the President, so it is also the grease that allows accountability for irregularities to slough off from the executive branch, especially its chief. Under the pork barrel system, legislators, individually or collectively, intrude into the implementation of projects and programs—which should be the sole province of the executive branch. This intrusion in turn impairs the objectivity of the legislators whose duties as members of congress include overseeing whether the projects and programs are being implemented properly, or at all, by the executive branch. This dilution, even defeat, of the checks and balances system is well articulated in the Decision.
101. From the meetings with Secretary Licuanan and Undersecretary
Garin, the evils sought to be prevented by the prohibition against PDAF are still present with the perpetuation of Aquino’s PDAF-like schemes for the hidden congressional pork.
102. The protocols in the MAP as described by Garin to legislators
amply demonstrate how the system of checks and balances—a mechanism that gives life to the Constitutional provision of accountability of public officers—is dissolved. First, her audience and the ones who aided in the drafting of the MAP guidelines are those who are duty-bound to check her Department in its implementation of the funds, investigating whenever necessary whether taxpayers’ money are properly and efficiently spent. As the SC said in its Decision, Congress cannot be expected to exercise its oversight function objectively, or at all, if its Members were part of the program to be investigated.71
70 CenPEG, Note 7. 71 The Decision, pages 51-52.
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103. The SC added, “[A]llowing legislators to intervene in the various
phases of project implementation—a matter before another office of government—renders them susceptible to taking undue advantage of their own office.”72 Indeed, allowing legislators to approve guidelines for the distribution of what the DOLE deems are “not DOH funds but are actually funds of Congressmen” and giving them power to say who exactly should get these funds, renders them susceptible to taking advantage of their power.
104. The second way in congressional pork destroys the system of
exacting the accountability of public officials is seen in the deletion in the guidelines of standards that would at least ensure that public funds are not given to just anybody, especially those who should not qualify for an assistance were it not for the endorsement of the House Member. DOH has waived several documentary evidence previously required under the PDAF like original complete prescriptions for medicines and medical supplies, laboratory requests, physician’s order request forms, and statements of account, which would have ensured that the funds will go to those who really need them, not to a Napoles-type individual or a fake NGO.
105. The hearing with Secretary Licuanan shows that CHED’s
guidelines on scholarships are being reduced to lip service, if not completely erased, with the priority status accorded to “the listahan of the congressmen.” These guidelines, such as those with regard to priority courses or the requirement to submit lists of actual scholars prior to downloading of funds to the higher education institutions, are safeguards that would ensure that the public funds appropriated for scholarships will indeed go to scholarships, and not for other purposes, including political accommodation and patronage. As aptly observed by one daily, “In the first place, the primary reason for the abolition of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) was to safeguard public funds by ensuring that it is used entirely for the welfare of the people and not for the benefit of legislators.”73
106. But the deeper injury caused by congressional pork, like any
other kind of pork, lies in the denial of equal access of the people to basic social services. This happens in either of two ways.
107. First refers to the culture of referral and recommendation
coming from politicians so ingrained in our society through decades of the pork barrel system. Due to this practice, only persons who carry guarantee letters or referrals can afford a medical check-up or procedure, or enrol in
72 Ibid, page 52 73 CHED’s priority courses for scholarship grantees, Catanduanes Tribune, 3 May 2014. http://www.catanduanestribune.com/article/3R1P. Last accessed on 10 August 2014.
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college, or receive employment assistance. Those unlucky enough not to have these golden tickets given by politicians will have to forego going to the clinic or a higher education. Instead of enjoying services which are supposed to be theirs for the taking as a matter of right, the people under pork have to knock on the doors of politicians to seek patronage or influence before they could they avail of these services—as matter of privilege.
108. The MAP guidelines have even strengthened this culture.
Whereas under the PDAF, guarantee letters are required, a hospital under the MAP guidelines can even issue a guarantee letter to a person with just one call of the House Member in case the funds have not yet been downloaded to the his or her chosen hospital. Also under MAP, patients referred by politicians are guaranteed of assistance—“We will not let the patient wait. We will not let your office wait,” said Undersecretary Garin on behalf of the DOH.
109. Worse, “walk-ins” in government hospitals, or those who went
straight to the hospital without first securing a guarantee letter, are disallowed. It is the politician who has the power to determine if a patient is “worthy” of assistance—not the needs of the patient, not the social workers and doctors and other medical personnel who have the competence to determine these needs.
110. Under this hidden, worsened congressional pork, what should be
right of everyone is now seen as a privilege. Under this system already banned by the highest court of the land, people who get sick should not call the doctor—they should call a politician. Those who cannot fully afford a college education, at their young age, are taught that they need to seek powerful patrons first before they can continue their studies. The same goes for the unemployed before they can get ease their joblessness and earn income while in between jobs.
111. Under this hidden, worsened congressional pork being
perpetuated by Aquino, the delivery of basic public services such as education, health care, social welfare, and employment assistance is politicized. The politicization of services denies access to the majority of the Filipino people who have neither the means nor the clout to go to the district offices of legislators or the House of Representatives in Quezon City. This is the evil when we course the delivery of basic social services to politicians.
112. There is a second manner in which equal access of the people to
basic social services is denied. The practice of putting gigantic lump sums (which the SC said to have fattened through 23 years at least 12 times74) 74 From P2.3 billion in 1990 to P24.79 billion in 2013. The Decision, page 17.
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which are to be disbursed per the discretion of a sole or a few individual officials have consistently denied the people of genuine and longer-term investments for services and infrastructure for their welfare. The people under pork have been forced to forgo 12,500 classrooms which could have been built with the P10 billion PDAF pocketed by Napoles, her political cohorts, and fake NGOs, and lost P74.3 billion—the total PDAF budgeted by the Aquino administration75—that could have more than adequately equipped and sustained schools, hospitals, and other public infrastructure, and spent for job creation.
113. It should be noted that the people—the victims of pork—demand
for the abolition of the pork barrel system because it deprives them of basic social services even as it leaves the government open for those who wish to exploit its resources for personal use, including political patronage. Aquino and his subalterns spit in the face of this public sentiment by using the people as scapegoats in their argument for the “necessity” of the culture of patronage central to pork:
“Interviewed in the House of Representatives, Abad said it is still the legislators’ duty to attend to their constituents’ needs even if they no longer have the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) to fund it. “‘There’s nothing wrong if legislators recommend projects kasi trabaho nila ‘yan’, Abad said. ‘Otherwise, magagalit ang constituents nila.’
x x x “Abad said lawmakers had to retain the privilege of lobbying with government agencies because they have constituents they need to take care of. “‘Instead of completely deleting [the PDAF] in the budget, Congress just decided to reallocate it because there are scholars, people undergoing dialysis who need help. We can’t just suddenly pull the plug on that’, he said. “Abad, however, insisted that the practice of recommending projects does not circumvent the Supreme Court’s ruling on the PDAF, which bans lawmakers from intervening or participating in any of the various post-enactment stages of the budget execution.”76
75 Aquino more than doubled the congressional pork dispensed annually to the men and women of Congress, from the P10,861,211,000 (GAA 2010) under the Arroyo administration to P24,620,000,000 (GAA 2011). 76 Abad defends lawmakers’ practice of recommending projects to govt agencies, 5 March 2014, http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/351235/news/nation/abad-defends-lawmakers-practice-of-recommending-projects-to-govt-agencies. Last accessed on 10 August 2014.
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114. Aquino and his administration defended the act of tucking the discretionary lump sum fund formerly known as PDAF into the budgets of the agencies. His budget Secretary Florencio Abad, exhibiting his rejection of the Belgica decision, was quoted as saying that political patronage is expected, and should even be tolerated:
“‘Pork’ still working for lawmakers “Abad: What’s wrong with political patronage? “MANILA, Philippines—Budget Secretary Florencio Abad sees nothing wrong with lawmakers asking the executive agencies that received the realigned congressional pork barrel funds to help their constituents seeking medical assistance, scholarships and the like. “Abad said lawmakers can refer their constituents to the agencies as this was part of their job and their duties as representatives of the people. “As to concerns that this would only perpetuate the evils of political patronage, Abad said political patronage will continue to exist as long as poverty remains and people continue to ask for help from their representatives. 115. “‘There has always been political patronage. You know why?
Because people will always go to their representatives. When they wake up in the morning, when they’re in Manila, people line up and ask for help. Can you eliminate that? That’s something you cannot eliminate. Until we are able to address rather substantially the problem of poverty, people will always find a way to go to their mayor, governor, congressman,’ he told reporters at the House of Representatives.”77 By perpetuating congressional pork through informal practices, Aquino is committing, at the maximum, malfeasance in the performance of his official duties or, at the minimum, nonfeasance
116. The above discussion shows that at the maximum, Aquino has breached of his oath of office through malfeasance by perpetuating congressional pork through informal practices, something which is prohibited by law. The law says that he should not deal pork to Members of Congress, yet he violates this law.
117. At the minimum, Aquino has breached of his oath of office
through nonfeasance by failing, upon official and unofficial reports that informal practices of accessing pork still occur, despite the Decision, in at least three of his agencies. The law, even the fundamental law of the land, says 77 Supra, Note 25. Emphases supplied.
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that he should do all within his power to faithfully and conscientiously execute the laws78 by installing policies against referral and recommendation by lawmakers and stopping the violations already reported, yet he fails to do so.
118. His violation of his sworn duties perpetuates political patronage
and works to the detriment of public interest, depriving the people of equal access to basic social services.
119. In sum, Aquino, by retaining the congressional pork barrel
through informal acts in violation of the SC Decision prohibiting them, has betrayed public trust, a treachery to the people compounded by his false assurance that his administration will comply with the said Decision.
120. It is clear, then, from the foregoing that Aquino is guilty of the
impeachable offense of betrayal of public trust.
SECOND IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE: CULPABLE VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION
Aquino knowingly, wilfully, and intentionally violated Section 17, Article VII of the Constitution by perpetuating informal practices of congressional pork barrel in defiance of the clear and express prohibition of the Supreme Court
“Culpable violation of the Constitution”
121. Aquino’s malfeasance and nonfeasance as regards the law on congressional pork barrel discussed in the foregoing paragraphs amount to his culpable violation of the Constitution.
122. According to the framers of the Constitution, “culpable violation
of the Constitution” means (1) wilful and (2) intentional breach or violation of the Constitution. Commentaries explain that this offense covers violations committed intentionally, voluntarily, in bad faith, and not due to errors of law or honest mistake of judgment.79
123. Since the ground is provided for by the Constitution, a document
ratified by ordinary people, the term is understood to have its ordinary
78 Sections 5 and 17, Article VII of the 1987 Constitution. 79 Bernas, citing Aruego, The Framing of the Constitution of the Philippines (1939); and Report of the Special Committee on the Impeachment of President Quirino (1949).
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meaning. Thus, “culpable violation” can take on the ordinary or layperson’s term—deserving blame, or guilty of doing something wrong.80
124. “Culpable violation” can also take the meaning of “culpability” in
criminal law, that is, lack of foresight or skill (criminal negligence), freedom of action, and knowledge or intelligence accompanying the act of violation.
125. Whether in the ordinary or legal sense, Aquino committed
culpable violation of the Constitution by his maintenance and defense of the congressional pork barrel through informal practices. Aquino is duty-bound to faithfully and conscientiously execute the laws yet he violates the law against congressional pork barrel
126. Section 17, Article VII of the 1987 Constitution made the faithful execution of the laws one of the primary duties of the President:
“The President shall have control of all the executive departments, bureaus, and offices. He shall ensure that the laws be faithfully executed.”81
127. Due to Article 8 of the Civil Code, this duty of the President
extends to jurisprudential pronouncements: “Judicial decisions applying or interpreting the laws or the Constitution shall form a part of the legal system of the Philippines.”
128. In Arturo de Castro v. Judicial and Bar Council,82 the High Court
explained in unequivocal terms the force and effectivity of jurisprudence:
“Judicial decisions assume the same authority as a statute itself and, until authoritatively abandoned, necessarily become, to the extent that they are applicable, the criteria that must control the actuations, not only of those called upon to abide by them, but also of those duty-bound to enforce obedience to them.” 129. The SC in this pronouncement pertains to decisions promulgated
by all courts having judicial power83 especially itself, which wields the highest judicial authority. It also pertains to all persons including public officials mandated to abide and enforce laws especially the President, who is the chief of all law-enforcement authority. 80 Merriam-Webster. 81 Or the “take care clause.” Emphases supplied. Also, the oath of the President in Section 5, Article VII. 82 G.R. No. 191002, 20 April 2010. 83 Section 1, Article VIII of the Constitution.
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130. Despite the clear and express prohibition of the SC, Aquino
perpetuates informal practices of congressional pork barrel. This act amounts to a violation of a pronouncement of no less than the highest judicial authority by no less than the highest law-enforcement authority, so soon after that decision is promulgated and in the amount of at least P25 billion.
131. Aquino’s violation is wilful and deliberate as it is being done in
the face of a clear and express pronouncement of the SC. Furthermore, beyond his fundamental duty to faithfully execute an express prohibition of the law, Aquino, being the President of the Republic, knows that all these principles have constitutional underpinnings and are the very bases of a working democratic and transparent government.
132. The gravity of Aquino’s sins to the Filipino people is evident in the
clear, mandatory, and all-encompassing words of the Belgica decision. “For as long as this nation adheres to the rule of law,” said the High Court, “any of the multifarious unconstitutional methods and mechanisms the Court has herein pointed out should never again be adopted in any system of governance, by any name or form, by any semblance or similarity, by any influence or effect.” Stressing the nature of these violations, the Court added that informal practices, though unwritten, are likewise “acts of grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction.”
133. From the foregoing, Aquino is clearly guilty of the impeachable
offense of culpable violation of the Constitution.
CLOSING
134. Complainants’ accusation is simple: The Supreme Court has laid
down the law clearly and expressly prohibiting congressional pork barrel including informal practices of dealing it. President Benigno Simeon Aquino III has no choice but to implement this law, yet he perpetuates congressional pork barrel by instituting hidden, unwritten means that allow legislators to intrude into the areas of budget implementation and themselves decide where the congressional pork should go. This violation of the law erodes the system of checks and balances, perpetuates political patronage, and deprives the people of their rights to basic social services.
135. We have here someone expected by the public and the
Constitution to take the lead in implementing the law, yet he is the one who instructs his alter egos to violate it, or at the very least, sits down and does nothing about the widespread violation happening right under his nose.
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136. In filing this impeachment complaint, Complainants do not wish to deprive the people lining up outside legislators’ offices in the hopes of securing a scholarship, or medical, financial, or social welfare assistance of the economic amelioration that congressional pork surely affords them. Complainants are saying that no Filipino should ever have to knock on the doors of politicians before they could avail of basic social services, all of which should be theirs by a matter of right.
137. This is the purpose of the demand for the abolition not just of
PDAF but also of any scheme like it—the rechanneling of these public funds to sustain and promote basic social services and the complete transparency and accountability in the management of these funds. All the government has to do is ensure that every peso is spent to provide for the needs of the people—not for “pogi points” of any public official, not to line the pockets of the few, and not for the political leverage of those in power.
138. Aquino’s position that there is nothing wrong with the supposed
entitlement of legislators to large chunks of public funds, that patronage will always be there, shows that he does not heed this demand for the abolition of congressional pork along with all forms of pork barrel.
139. There is no doubt, therefore, why he has erected mechanisms
across several of his agencies and mobilized significant public resources to allow the enabling of unconstitutional legislators’ entitlement and their consequent intervention in budget implementation.
140. Complainants have found that Aquino has thrown away their
faith. They call on Congress to institute the only proceedings allowed by the Constitution by which he can be made to explain his breach of fealty to public interest and culpable violation of the Constitution and, eventually, be removed from office.
RELIEF
PREMISES CONSIDERED, Complainants pray that the House of Representatives Committee on Justice declare that this impeachment complaint is SUFFICIENT IN FORM AND SUBSTANCE and that there is PROBABLE CAUSE TO IMPEACH PRESIDENT BENIGNO SIMEON COJUANCGO AQUINO III.
Other reliefs just and equitable under the premises are prayed for. Quezon City, 11 August 2014.
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ASSISTED BY:
MANEEKA ASISTOL SARZA Roll No. 57897
IBP LRNo. 011274/12-17-12 PTR No. 7621794/3-17-14/Quezon City MCLE Compliance IV-0023102/2-26-14
Provisional Transcript
Audio Recording of meeting of Department of Health Undersecretary Janette Garin with Members of the House of Representatives and their staff to discuss the DOH
Medical Assistance Program
Andaya Hall, Batasang Pambansa
May 20, 2014
Usec. Garin: Good afternoon everybody, I’m Dr. Janette Garin representing the Department of Health. I was actually with the House of Representatives for the past nine years. So first and foremost in behalf of the Department of Health, allow me to apologize for all the chaos and confusions that the Medical Assistance Program has created. Admittedly, there were a lot of lapses in our end, guidelines were being amended I believe for 3 times. So pasensya po sa nangyari, precise for me to say that last week before the Secretary left for Geneva, this whole program was transferred to my office. I willingly and gladly accepted because I look at my position as something that was given to me with confidence and something that placed be there because of the teachings of my previous mentors in the House of Representatives like boss Tito Raul Del Mar, so andidito po ako ngayon, we admit medyo marami ang mga reklamo, medyo marami ang confusions, so I hope, I hope you will allow us to apologize for that, but also allow us to have a little breathing space.
For the past two days we actually reviewed all the, everything that we had that has happened, including the guidelines, including the process, and precise for me to say that admittedly most of the lapses were on the part of the Department that we admit and the guidelines that was given to you was in contrary to the initial guidelines that I presented to the Speaker and the officers of the House. Hence it became more tedious. So we actually have a new set of guidelines, so we’ll be giving it in awhile. Just to mention few things. The previous administrative order that the secretary signed will now be amended by the new AO that he signed before he left for Geneva so just to clearly point out, well the, the GAA states that the eligible patients are the indigent patients so nagkakaroon po ng maraming confusion because yung iba kasi they, there’s alot of definition to indigent patients so for this purpose we defined the patients as MAP indigent patients. Okay, so the qualifications will be a recommendation from the MAP officials, and who are the MAP officials? Kayo yan, these are the Congressmen or your designated personnel.
So yun po ang nangyayari and the eligible patient are all patients admitted or seeking consult in a government health care facility. Now on the implementing mechanism, we also learned that because it was going together with PAU or the Public Assistance Unit of the Department of Health, nagkaroon ng maraming requirements so on the provision of Medical Assistance there were requirements as to the original complete prescription for medicines and medical supplies, the original laboratory request, the original physician’s order request form and the statement of account all of this, so for your previous guidelines under Section 4, B that whole paragraph has been deleted so we, the new guidelines that you have now, it’s totally deleted kasi andudun nga yung sinasabi ninyo na pinapabalik-balik yung pasyente, totoo yun kasi hinahanap yung mga original request and the patient has to look for the doctor to sign it and that task alone is very tedious kasi yung doktor minsan nag-ra-rounds, minsan nasa ibang… so lahat ng requirements na yun mawawala yun, also the hospitals, we had a meeting with them last week and he said of a single contact person they are required to have at least two contact persons in-charge of this program, the directory of which we will give to you in awhile.
On the previous guidelines, there were also a, a, a table that reflected the guidelines in terms of DOH-retained Hospital facilities and the non-DOH-retained hospital, hospitals and health care facilities. Okay, basically the problem was this, for the DOH-retained health facilities, mali naman po talaga, lalo na pag sinasabi nila na “uy, sorry po wala po ditong pondo yung Congressman ninyo,” hindi po talaga dapat sabihin yun. Okay, so we already called the attention of all the chief of hospitals and in-fact a memo has been released to them last Friday.
So we will have three procedures, unang-una po yung pinapakiusap ng lahat na downloading ng funds, the finance department, the finance section of the Department of Health has facilitated that, but we understand that, because of bureaucracy, minsan natatagalan. So if your funds are already downloaded in the DOH hospitals. So I repeat unang-una po downloading of funds to DOH Hospitals including retained hospitals that includes the regional medical centers and specialty hospitals if your office has funds there, you can transact directly with them yung point person nandudun, second, if in case nagpadala kayo ng pasyente, pagkapadala ninyo ng pasyente sinabi ay wala po ditong pondo yung opisina ninyo which usually happens, this is something that we admit should not happen but unfortunately the process of requesting the funds and downloading it takes a lot of time. So the proposal that we have in this case kung saka-sakaling pagdating, wala diyaan, walang pondo yung office or whatever, we have a directory that will be given to you and that will be e-mailed to all your offices. In that directory, there are two persons in-charge
of all hospitals, so makikita ninyo dun sa directory, andidito yung mga pangalan ng mga hospitals and then kung sino yung contact person na tatawagan ninyo. So for any problem, you immediately call, text or e-mail the persons in-charge of that hospital and automatically they will issue a guarantee letter direct to your office and direct to the hospital.
Kung saka-sakaling hindi pa natanggap ng hospital, dala-dala na ng pasyente ninyo yan kasi ibibigay ng office ninyo pero kung yung pasyente naman nasa hospital, dun din niya kukunin. It’s just like an alternative, kung in case wala pa yung pondo ninyo dun sa specific na hospital. In that way, we will not let the patient wait, we will not let your office wait and if the patient will be discharged on that day or the day after, the guarantee letter will be honoured. We also understand na yung guarantee letter na unang nirelease, medyo yung format, I mean it’s good, it’s okay. Unfortunately the format creates a lot of questions kasi nga parang it’s, it’s an indigency program of the DOH. Nawawalan ngayon ng, let’s admit it the political points in, in the case of the office requesting it kasi ang nakapirma dun is Asec. Lagajid and it was placed there na hindi pwedeng i-honor pag Saturday and Sunday. Andudun din yung nakalagay na it’s charged in the office of the Secretary. So all of these were deleted. We will be giving you the new format of the guarantee letter. What is there is a bar code on top because that is our control, and that’s also given to the hospitals. So nakalagay lang dun yung pangalan ng pasyente, kung saang hospital and the amount that you would like us to place in the guarantee letter.
Now, the people in-charge, kaya yan dalawa for the mean time, but in the next two weeks they will be three. Why? Because they will be on 24/7 duty so that you can call the number that we will be giving will be endorsed appropriately because they will be on eight hours duty so holidays, weekend, gabi man, madaling-araw man, merong sumasagot sa text or tawag ninyo. We will give the names to you and the contact numbers at the appropriate time. Now, the third one is the Local Government Unit hospitals. We already have issued a directive to all our regional directors to… to come up with a MOA that we have drafted it’s… it’s a new memorandum of agreement for them to make representations for the governor to sign to cover all the hospitals, and in the case of LGU Hospitals we understand na sa iba walang problema pero yung iba naman may problema. And on the part of DOH naman, we are bound by COA not to release funds if we have no obligation. So their mechanism will again be like a reimbursement process where all guarantee letters released by your office to them will be reimbursed within 10 working days by the department. So yan po yung tatlong sistema. Just to make a recap, there will be three mechanisms, the first will be your funds will be directly downloaded to the specialty hospitals and all DOH-retained
hospitals and when that happens, you can communicate directly to them, but just in
case, pag punta nung pasyente ninyo, pagtawag ninyo, hindi kayo agad-agad na-
entertain, we will be giving you a directory for the personnel in-charge 24/7, just give
them the name of the patient, the amount and then a guarantee letter will be
immediately forwarded to your office. The hospital will also be copied and the
personnel in-charge, the cashier office will also be texted, yung number, the amount,
and the name of the patient. Para po agad-agad na ma-entertain. That mechanism
also follows for the LGU` Hospitals.
Now the other requirements, that yung table sa previous guidelines ninyo, that was
actually page four in the old requirements. What you have now is the new one.
Tinanggal na namin lahat yun. We admit it’s also very tedious especially if the patient
has to go to the social worker and come up with all these documentary requirements.
Now on the determination of the eligibility of the patient for assistance from the
MAP, we have also deleted that because the eligibility of the patient is actually your
decision. Then… also to erase all doubts we included it in the guidelines kasi yung LGU Hospitals are concerned na baka hindi sila mabayaran or whatever.
Nakalagay na doon that within 10 working days the department is obliged to pay
them. That’s why in the letter that we sent out to the governors and the regional directors and the chief of hospitals, we requested for their corresponding bank and
bank accounts para direkta nang bank-to-bank na magbabayad lahat, lahat-lahat,
bank-to-bank na yung pagbayad ng central office sa lahat ng mga hospitals. Now,
there are also a lot of, the reason why there were a lot of requirements in the
previous guidelines, was that in the GAA that was approved, andudun na naka-
stipulate yung medicines given, laboratories done, yung mga itemized list. So all of
that will now be complied by a specific team that will be handling. So every patient,
tuloy-tuloy yung pagbigay ninyo ng assistance, but my office, there will be five, or
four or five personnel whose work will be to comply with all the requirements under
the GAA. Yung mga gamot na binibigay. So all of these requirements para hindi na
yun itulak sa pasyente. Kasi kaya rin nagrereklamo yung ibang pasyente dahil napi-
pingpong sila. Ang daming opisina na pinupuntahan, which is actually not good kasi
parang pinapahirapan pa sila. So that has been deleted.
And instead it will be a responsibility of my office to comply with all of these
requirements. Now on the, on the draft memorandum of agreement with the LGU`s,
while initially we wanted to just have it signed by the chief of hospital, hindi nga raw
pi-puwede kasi they are under the direct supervision of the local government chief
executive. So the others have decided not to put funds in the LGU` hospitals but for
those who will be putting funds, our… our assurance is that, hindi naman siya magagamit ng governor kasi first, we are bound by COA rules not to download kung wala kaming payables. So kung may guarantee letter galing sa inyo, yan po ang babayaran ng Department of Health. Now, there were also concerns that were raised to us. We realized na nagkaroon ng dalawang forms. And yung una kasi, I was confused when I was receiving calls because that the entire program was handled by another office.
Now I understood ito palang dalawang forms because it’s a PAU or a Public Assistance Unit Office, yung isang form na pinapadala sa inyo parang yung mga walk-in patient na gustong magpatulong. The PAU office writes a recommendation and sends it to your office. So medyo hindi maganda kasi parang ang feeling tuloy ng pasyente nagpunta siya sa DOH, ngayon itutulak namin sa office ninyo. Pag hindi agad na-entertain ng office ninyo, marami pang salita. So the decision of the Department is to do away with all walk-in patients because in the first place it was made clear to us that these funds are not DOH funds but are actually funds of Congressmen who are there to assist their constituents. So the referral letter if ever you receive one coming from DOH, don’t mind that but we already gave instruction. I mean I personally gave instructions last week to do away with all of those. Kasi hindi pi-puwedeng yung mgs kapag may lumalapit dun ire-refer namin sa inyo. You know best and you know better sino ang nanganagilangan ng tulong sa distrito ninyo. Isa pa, hindi rin talaga namin alam kung constituent ninyo because they can always say they’re from this district, they’re from this area tapos hindi naman. Now there was also the issue of the compilation or the collation of patients for the day before referring to the MAP. Parang binubuo muna sila lahat before ipadala.
Syempre tumatagal din talaga. Kaya everytime na pasyente (kung) if they go to your office, just refer them to us immediately and within 30 minutes at the most that will be… yan na yung pinaka, pinakamatagal. The guarantee letter will be e-mailed direct to your office. Whether it will be your office here or your district office, just give us the e-mail address but aside from that and guarantee letter is also with the respective hospitals so yung issue na kino-collate muna lahat before gawan ng guarantee letter mawawala na yun kasi meron nang taong in-charge for that specific hospital. So if I`m the patient, I’`ll go let’s say to the office of Congresswoman Catamco, pagdating ko dun sasabihin ko dun “Cong., nangangailangan ako ng tulong.” her office will text the person in-charge then the guarantee letter goes to her office you print it and then you can always say “Ito po tulong ni Congressman, tulong po ng opisina, dalhin ninyo lang ito sa opisina, sa hospital, sa cashier office.” that will be entertained and in the guarantee letter, there’s no mention of any… any person in the
Department of Health, just was a mention there of a, of the indigency fund as being used to assist them. Now meron ding mga tanong yung billing amount daw, hindi nagko-coincide sa requested amount sa guarantee letter.
We already gave instructions for the hospitals, kung kunwari ang pinabigay ninyong tulong is four thousand or let’s say five thousand. Yung billing niya kasi nabawasan pa pala ng Philhealth or whatever naging let’s say three thousand five hundred na lang para hindi na tumagal, pakuha ninyo na lang ng take home meds niya. Kasi meron namang mga gamot din na inuuwi sa bahay so pakuha na lang dun. Idadagdag na lang nila sa bill yun. The hospital wouldn’`t mind as long as the amount stipulated in the guarantee letter will be the amount will be the amount that the hospital will honor.
If the bill is like five thousand and the guarantee letter is four thousand five hundred then they have to pay for the 500 kasi medyo mahirap silang i-ano... Okay, the other issue was that yung nagbabago let`’s say meron kayong pondo na ni-request and we fully understand na sa dami ng nakakaharap ninyo syempre minsan, minsan kasi napansin namin meron kayong constituents nag-aaral sa ibang probinsya o ibang region, naaksidente dun nagkasakit whatever happens. Wala kayong pondo dun. So instead of waiting for the downloaded funds, the personnel in-charge dun ulit sa directory na ibibigay at i-e-mail namin sainyo within the day, yun ulit ang tatawagan. Kasi nakalagay naman doon even yung hospital na hindi sa distrito ninyo. So we will still honor that as long as yung pondo ninyo may naiwan pa na hindi siya fully downloaded dun sa isang hospital. So yun yung pi-puwede but if i`t’s like fully downloaded at nautilized na, makikiusap naman kami na mahirap on our part kasi the funds that are remaining are actually funds for use of the other Congressmen. Yung… on the memorandum of agreement that will be signed by the local government chief executive, there was also this concern na ni-re-refer pa sila sa social worker. Well, admittedly it really takes time especially na yung municipal social welfare officer isa lang siya, pag nag-bi-break siya or nag-li-leave wala na.
Since it’s DOH and the hospital has the capability to determine and in the new… new guidelines, the definition of indigent patients and eligible patients is those seeking consult and admitted in the government health care facilitiy. Then our legal department also agreed that we don’t need a social worker para hindi na sila pupunta at di na sila mahihirapan. The mere fact that they sought consult in a government health facility, that’s enough. Now what would be the requirement for the guarantee letter to be honoured, di ba meron yung mga dati original prescription, original clinical abstract, original medical certificate, social worker’s, mga blah… blah… blah. Pinatanggal na namin lahat yun. Kasi sad to say, tama din na magalit kayo
because we realized that many if not all of the hospitals meron palang corresponding
charges for this, so hindi namin alam yun, our apologies for that. Every document
pala na ni-re-require yung clinical abstract, medical certificate. Meron palang bayad.
So yung pasyente syempre, mas lalong nagagalit. At yun pala yung battle net, so ini-
explain ng hospital na, “hindi, ini-entertain namin yan, kulang lang yung
requirements.” Ngayon nung tinanong namin yung mga pasyente, eh kasi yung requirements pala, may bayad din. So ang pangit tingnan. So all of that requirements
had been deleted because this is a requirement of the PAU office. Part kasi yun ng
parang ISO certification. So these were all deleted. The only requirement that the
guarantee letter will be requiring is an attach hospital billing. Okay, because from that
hospital billing, magkakaroon na kami ngayon ng papel na puwede naming i-trace
para dun sa lahat ng mga requirements for COA and GAA purposes so that’s all the… ay just last… last concern pala.
Ang daming tumatawag tungkol sa procurement of medicines. While we would like to
support that, our dilemma is that our hands are tied because in the funds that were
approved, naka-specify kasi siya na hospital assistance. May we just request na kung
pu-pwede for the next year, specified dun na puwede yung procurement of
medicines for medical missions because as of now, DBM does not allow us. Actually,
ang tiningnan din namin, hindi rin kasi solely ma-blame yung DBM kasi ang naging
problema, parang yung, may mga COA reports not related to PDAF but related to
procurement of medicines, in some hospitals and in some LGU`s. And because of
these, parang naging damay-damay ang lahat. So while they are doing things to
resolve that, hindi muna in-allow. So yun naman yung medyo dilemma namin but
then if you have medical missions these are like out patient, you can group them
together like oh you can have a diabetes clinic or you can have a hypertensive clinic
and then the laboratories and the medicines that they will be using can be charged to
the hospital. So pu-pwede po yung ganun. Yes, sir.
Question from the audience: Good afternoon po! Asec!
Usec. Garin: Hi bossing!
Question from the audience: My question is regarding health facilities that doesn’t have any medicines or medical supplies considering that I’ve heard in the recent news that some private… almost all private hospitals in Metro Manila will not honor cleans completion considering that Philhealth itself owes these hospitals these
private hospitals is having a hard time of facilitating for the papers in cleaning the
hospital for the Philhealth benefit of the patient. Kasi po that is one side kasi sa amin
sa probinsya, talaga pong minsan ang ospital ang… for example in Biliran there is only
one hospital which is the provincial hospital. There is no private hospital, there is no national government hospital. The nearest national government hospital is two hours away. Now, most of the patients are really poor. Some of them needs immediate attention, immediate operation… surgical operation like that and has a lot of prescriptions needed for the operations to be conducted immediately. Unfortunately, let’s agree that all… mostly of the government hospitals especially in the rural areas doesn’t have the medicines.
Usec. Garin: The medicines… these are for LGU`s Hospitals… not from, hindi yung DOH hospital.
Question from the audience: Yes… Kasi po ang ginagawa namin dun, during there was PDAF and I’m a doctor kasi. So ang ginagawa ko mino-MOA ko sa government and then we abide by all of the COA rules. Ano bang requirement ng COA? Dahil pag pinasok mo sa LGU yan, the LGU must be responsible for the funds under all COA rules so mangyayari po dyan kailangan ng social profiling. Kailangan ko ng medical certificate or hospital abstract. Hahanapan po sila ng, ng resibo ng mga gamot kaya nangyayari po mas effective nun because nasa LGU ang pondo. Nagpa-facilitate ang district office. Kung walang gamot sa loob ng ospital sa emergency room, kami mismo ang bumibili sa botika sa labas, may resibo, nakapangalan sa pasyente para pag ni-liquidate namin sa COA, malinis. Walang dahilan na kung saan napunta yung pondo pero kung tatanggalin po natin ngayon yung mga requirements na I don’t know if the, the COA will… acceptable sa kanila na walang mga supporting justifications. Just hospital bill lang kasi alam ninyo po kung hospital bill lang ang sagot ng DOH pa, eh talagang kawawa ang mahihirap dahil ang hospital walang gamit, walang gamot, walang anaesthetics, halos wala.
Usec. Garin: Okay, for the COA, sa… sa ganitong sistema let’s go back to the ano please... Okay for this kasi, for the guarantee letter, it will be acceptable to COA because the patient’s bill will allow us to look into what we call the WEB PAIS. So what DOH has setup is an internet linkage among all our hospitals, that we encode the patients’ name,we get their records. So ibig sabihin, actually hindi na yun iko-comply kasi meron na lang kaming mga tao na taga-comply nun. So we transfer the burden of the patients to our staff. Now, yung sa LGU`s we will… we will make immediately presentations with the DBM kasi yung downloading of funds, hindi namin alam kung papayagan in the previous meetings kasi, hindi pi-pwede kung wala kang billing basis.
Now, what we can actually do is that, I don’t know if it will be of much help. What we can do is possibly include it in the MOA that the governor who will sign kasi yung
governor naman yung may pondo, the governor who will sign will also manifest that while they are signing kasi it’s actually income for them eh kasi kaysa ang nangyayari ngayon yung pasyenteng walang pambayad, hindi mo naman mapilit, with the Congressional fund now, yung pasyenteng walang pambayad, aside from Philhealth kahit papaano nadadagdagan ang pondo ninyo. So ang mangyayari dun, it’s also a welcome income for them. Then maybe in the MOA, we will stipulate that it’s their mandate to provide the basic meds and the commonly used medicines in their hospital. So that’s one that they can do, but after this meeting allow me to have some time to make representations with DBM and COA on, on how we are going to facilitate the, yeah, pwedeng dun na lang sa first slide. Next slide please. No, no, no, slide, previous slide, okay so this is the new term that will be included. Yung eligible beneficiary, so we do away with the social worker, with the assessment whatsoever, they are seeking consultation, sinama namin yung rehab per request of other congressmen, examination or other... regardless of room category, okay… kasi meron namang mga pasyente na hindi raw tinatanggap kasi nasa semi-private room or private room. Unfortunately, there are illnesses that mandates (sic) their isolation or minsan puno yung hospital. Hindi naman nila kasalanan na sa private room sila. So isasama na lang siya. Ito lang yung problema namin yung professional fees.
Maybe you can help us with, ito talaga it’s, it’s really COA… We, we made several representations, binabalik naman ng COA sa amin which is somehow true kasi, as, as indigent patients hindi, lalo na kapag Philhealth, meron na kasing professional fee. Supposed to be yung doctor hindi na sumisingil. Kaya siya hindi nadya-justify kasi like in the case… actually in a meeting with Philhealth, I put forward a proposal sabi ko sa Philhealth, “baka naman pi-puwede kasi what happens is if I’m the doctor, pasyente kunwari pasyente si cong., Cong. Henry Pryde Teves. May Philhealth siya or HMO, what Philhealth and MHO does, is that they pay the hospital for the medical bills, the PF goes direct to my bank account.” Ganun po yun. So sa government hospitals, ganun din. The Philhealth goes direct to the bank account of the doctor.
So minsan, hindi alam ng pasyente na meron na siyang binayad. So what we are recommending is they give the money or the PF direct to the patient, the patient then pays that to the doctor. Then magtatawaran na sila para may semblance ng bayad. We have a pending proposal about dun sa Philhealth, and medyo nag-okay naman sila initially, kasi ang nangyayari ngayon, people do not know na yung doktor nababayaran na pala ng Philhealth. Kaya pag sumisingil sila, akala naman ng pasyente talagang walang naibayad. Nagdodoble actually. Kasi like hinahanap mo, so philhealth like will pay you eight thousand… so that’s something we would like to solve. Will this still get refunds from payment? Actually, yung sa ngayon. Ahh, kasi yung walang
Philhealth. Ngayon pala, yung… just to inform you, there’s a point of care. Okay. What is the point of care program? The point of care says. May pasyente ka. Nasa government hospital. Makikita naman ng hospital na walang pamabayad yun, walang Philhealth. The point of care allows, actually it mandates the hospital to automatically enrol the patient.
Nagkaroon lang ng kaunting glitch kasi nung nagbabayad na yung hospital sa Philhealth na-disallow ng COA. Okay. Yung COA naman nung dinis-allow nila, kasi nasa batas nga talaga na yung income ng hospital, hindi puwedeng pambayad ng Philhealth premimum. So for an exemption we already had three meetings with DBM, during the latest meeting we submitted a format again to Sec. Butch. And then we are awaiting, I mean verbally and in principle secretary Abad already agreed kasi sabi ko “Boss ang kailangan lang naman talaga dito papel na pirmado ng DBM instructing COA that they are now allowing hospitals… they are amending that rule that hospitals can pay for the premium.” So medyo maso-solve na yun, so kung yung pasyente walang pambayad, pagpasok niya at hindi siya enrolled dun sa matrix, pwede siyang i-enrol ng hospital, yes. So yan yung point of care. So yung admission niya na yan, mababayran na siya ng Philhealth.
Question from the Audience: Magandang hapon po. Tanong ko lang U-sec, are all hospitals, nationwide ay may point of care?
Usec. Garin: Supposedly, all DOH hospitals, yes. Yung LGU naman, kapag sinama rin sila yun lang yung naging ano… yung payment ng income kasama na rin sila. So lahat po yun.
Question from the Audience: second po ay, yung, kasi, yung halimbawa po, makaka-avail na ang mga indigent patients ng point of care, is it available 24/7? Ang… ang pag-issue po ng point of care para sa mga pasyente po?
Usec. Garin: Yes, because the hospital enrols them. So the hospital gets their data, may form na sila. Tapos hindi nga makakabayad yan… babayaran ng Philhealth.
Question from the Audience: So it becomes automatically enrolled? Once they, they are confined. Once they are confined in the hospital. How about Usec, yun pong ano, yung mga emergency cases po, na, yung, yung kailangan po ng pasyenteng mahirap ng kailangan they have to avail yung private doctors, is the point of care… takes care (sic) of that? Halimbawa po naaksidente po at nagkaroon po ng problema sa brain, so the hospital especially the LGUs hospitals ay wala pong available sa kanila na neurologist, kailangan pong kumuha ng private doctor? So how can we address the problem of the patient?
Usec. Garin: Yes, yes, yes… Actually as long as the patient is indigent and even if it is a pay patient, tapos walang specialist na available, Philhealth covers them as long as the doctor is Philhealth accredited.
Question from the Audience: So they are fully-covered po?
Usec. Garin: Yes, yes. Kaya lang yung Philhealth kasi meron silang like, for this case, ito yung PF. For this case, ito yung PF. Sometimes kasi, the other doctors would charge parang... plus, plus, plus.
Question from the Audience: Yun nga po eh, kasi halimbawa manininingil po ng, yung neurologist, maninigil po siya kung minsan po ng 120, 000.00. Yan po ang ano. Syempre hindi naman po mamimili yung pangyayari, ay hindi makakapamili kung sino yung tao kung mahirap ba siya o mayaman, ang masama, ang mahirap po sa isang mahirap na tao ay maaksidente hindi lamang po sa, sa motorsiklo, whatever accident may happen to an individual, ay masasagot po ba yun? Kung minsan 120, 000, kung minsan 200, 000. Halimbawa po kung minsan kasi mayroon din pong inaatake nasa isang okasyon biglang inatake at dinala po sa heart center, or sa ibang specialty hospital, masasagot po ba yun ng point of care?
Usec. Garin: For the Philhealth enrolment, yes. And the fee corresponding to that Philhealth allows. Unfortunately and admittedly, nakakahiya mang sabihin, meron talagang ibang doctors na they take advantage, so nagcha-charge sila ng malaki. May taripa naman supposedly yun pero yung iba nga hindi sumusunod. Because, unlike the lawyers, they have IBP. For the doctors, wala kasing integrated PMA. It was actually the law that I believe congresswoman Binay, myself, and, bothers with… they are pushing before kasi there is no body, dapat din kasi, tama naman na sumingil kasi hanapbuhay nila yun, pero yung tolerable, ang nangyayari kasi parang kanya-kanya na, wala nang sinusunod. That is why na we have a pending proposal with Philhealth maybe you can help us with that, na yung payment ng professional fee na reimbursement goes direct to the patient para yung pasyente dala-dala na yung pera ibabayad niya dun sila magne-negotiate. Kasi nangyayari sa ngayon talaga, it goes direct to the doctor.
Question from the Audience: Saka po Usec, kung hindi po masasagot lahat ng Philhealth, that is why concern po kami na maunawaan po ng COA at ng DBM na sana po yung aming ahh, ahh allotted funds for the medical assistance ay mabigyan po ng pagkakataon na makapag-rekomenda po kami ng professional fee din po pandagdag dun sa hindi po ma-accommodate ng Philhealth.
Usec. Garin: Yeah, ahm we will also wait the presentations pero siguro sa, ito kasi yung ngayon nakasama ito doon kasi previously mayroon yatang na-disallow yung COA yun sa, sa PDAF pa before so that’s why pero yung isa naman dun ahm, maybe we should also inform the patients that there is this law lalo na kung government hospital eh hindi pwedeng ma-hold yung patient. So kung nabayaran na yan supposed to be yung hospital pwede na silang i-release.
Question from the Audience: Usec. Halimbawa po ah isang mahirap na pasyente na lumapit sa amin na, na by emergency cases eh nalagay po sa private hospital how can we be of help to them?
Usec. Garin: Through the medical assistance program that ahm, you, you recommend as long as they are in the government facility ahm, ah private hospital.
Question from the Audience: Private po… private po nadala po kasi yun po ang pinakamalapit.
Usec. Garin: The, the solution talaga dun is you transfer.
Question from the Audience: In the, in the real sense po eh, Usec. nangyayari po kasi yan.
Usec. Garin: Yeah, yeah, we understand marami pong nangyayaring ganyan. Pero marami din pong immediately eh nililipat. Acutally there is a proposal to expand yung medical assistance program to include the private hospitals. Kaya lang yung eto nga yung ngayon madalian kasi siya during the budget hearing, Atleast like ahmn, we now have 3 sets for request for the next budget.
Question from the Audience: Yun po kasing ah, alam ko yung funds na allotted for every district ay it has to be identified by a, a district congressman or or party-list ahm, ahh.
Usec. Garin: Actually po, not necessarily that is why we wanted to correct that kasi marami na yung nagrereklamo noh, correct us if I am wrong, andaming nagreklamo na bakit daw pinapa-identify ng hospital tapos pag gusto nang ilipat, ang hirap. Ang totoo po, hindi naman po necessary na mag-identify kayo agad, unless you want your money downloaded there immediately. Our initial recommendation was actually, we’ll send the guarantee letters then bayaran agad para walang, walang tagal, walang maraming requirements kasi the hospital structure has a lot of requirements for indigency program natutunga kasi diyan sila eh. So to solve that, yun yung prinopose namin. But then there were others naman we’re very comfortable with outright
downloading so sabi namin okay naman yun. For those na wala kayong downloaded na pondo, actually it’s easier, better and more flexible kasi by the time na nagpalit ka ng isip, kunyare party-list congressman ka, dito ka naglagay ng pondo, then mayroon din dun kasamahan ninyo, kaibigan ninyo tumatakbo din, you want to concentrate on this area, so very flexible, all you have to do is look at our directory tell the person in charge you want a guarantee letter immediately to this hospital, this patient, ipadala agad. So hindi na yung na-download na dun, babawiin mo ulit, ire-realign mo.
Mas matagal yun. So for those who were not able to submit a list of breakdown. Wala pong problema. You just call/text Atty. (?) here Moly is the one heading the group. So that’s Moly. Kasama rin dun yung AO ko si Ethel, and then yung si Annalyn. Ito si Moly he will be heading the staff, ito si Moly pakita mo yung… Si Moly will be the one supervising the personnel na 24/7 on 8 hours rotation to cater to your calls… So yung dun sa directory ulitin ko lang dalawa lang muna yung pangalan dun may dadagdag na pangatlo, telephone numbers and name of hospitals. So kung yung pasyenete nandito sa hospital A, ito yung pangalan ng pasyente Hospital A, amount, text ninyo lang yung inyong designated na office or ano padala kaagad namin yung guarantee letter by e-mail kung walang e-mail we will fax it but at the same time we give a copy to the cashier’s office and the director’s office in the hospital. Para pagkapunta yung pasyente kung yung lumapit nandidito or district office, punta sila, ibibigay.
Question from the Audience: For clarification lang po, sana po eh lend me your ears, silence please. Hindi po tayo magkakaintindihan if everyone, all of us are talking. My clarificatory question lamang po ako Usec. Yun po bang ating available personnel in your office po eh can accommodate all congressmen’s ah concerns, regarding, with regards (sic) to the sending of a guarantee letters kasi po katulad ko lamang po sa aming distrito po ay napakarami po na nabibigyan ng, na binibigyan namin dati ng guarantee letter eh kung minsan po animnapu kung minsan po eh isang daang pasyente eh kung kami pong lahat eh almost 300 congressmen po kami can they all accommodate all of us po for that particular day. Pangalawa po. Ay.. yun po munag sgaot.
Usec. Garin: Actually yes, ahm pasensya lang po nagkaron po kasi ng konting misunderstanding when this program came in and initially we thought it will be assigned to my office, we trained people, kaya lang nung nagkaroon ng konting, nagkaroon ng meeting si Sec. and with some leaders of the House, nagkaroon ng konting miscommunication so hindi po, parang na-cut, na-cut because they thought that, that hindi na kailangan yung gagawa ng guarantee letter, gagawa ng guidelines, I mean gagawa nung yung mga medicines given, laboratories requested, because it will
be requested by the patient sa hospital. Yung lumabas na ngayon na may bayad pala yung lahat ng data na yun, ahm actually ni-retrieve namin yung lahat na trinain, we started calling them, we had a meeting last week, dinagdagan ng tao, so makakayanan po nila. And ahm, if there will be a battle neck at some point of time, nagdadagdag po kami nang nagdadagdag ng tao. But for now, people who were facilitating before that’s a total of 6 or 7 people ahm, now they are 14 and 21. So yun po situation po. For sure they can accommodate everybody.
Question from the Audience: Secondly po, yung ah patients po na na-confine po or iko-confine pa lang sa LGUs hospitals in my province po ay papano po sila mabibigyan ng gamot ng hospital kung wala pa po kasi sabi po ninyo yun munang hospital bill ang ibibigay, isesend po sa inyo. Tama po ba ako. Yun lang pong hospital bill ang isesend po sa inyo at kayo po ang magda-download ng pera sa provincial government kasi ito pong LGUs noh ay under po ng provincial executives ay papano po tatanggapin ng isang LGU hospital katulad po ng samin provincial hospital sasabihin na lang po na. Papano po ba ang communication namin? Ahm, kami po ay magbibigay ng endorsement sa director ng LGU hospital? Or halimbawa po provincial hospitals or district hospitals within my district magbibigay po ba ako ng endorsement sa director para po lahat ng kanyang kailangang gawing examinations, laboratories, ultrasound, CT scan, those are facilities available in hospitals tska po yung medicines yun po ba ay i-endorse ko po sa district, ay sa director ng hospitals for that matter.
Usec. Garin: Yeah, we actually sent already a memo to all regional directors and we will be making representations isa-isa po sa lahat ng hospital na any gurantee letter na dala-dala ng pasyente galing sa opisina ng congressman, tanggapin nila because we will also be sending a direct similar copied sila para at least alam nila na mayroon. Now yung ipadadala namin sa congressional office ninyo na ibibigay ninyo ngayon sa pasyente na ito po tulong ni congressman, ganyan, dadalhin ng pasyente yun di ba, ibibigay niya sa hospital, pagdala niya sa hospital, lahat po iyon let us say at the end of two weeks iko-compile ng hospital and then they just send it to the regional office. The regional office will now validate it with us and then we say yes, kasi magpapadala na kami ng amount and do that fund transfer within ten working days. That is the maximum, ten working days.
Question from the Audience: Maraming salamat po. Klarong-klaro na po. Maraming salamat po.
Usec. Garin: So hindi po tatagal yung utang.
Question from the Audience: Magandang hapon po ulit Usec, Janet. Alam ninyo po sa DSWD version. Yung oresent version ngayon, I was able to talk to the Secretary Dinky and ah, ganun din ang assistance fund eh kasi from the same fund that what the DOH will provide. Ang napagkasunduan po namin ah regarding dun sa situations like us na malayo kami sa regional office, malayo po kami sa mga regional hospitals, or national agencies, eh ida-download po nila, meron na po silang ginawang MOA from the central office ang pipirma yung regional director ng DSWD at ah ida-download po yung pondo let us say 12 million. Sabi ni Secretary Cong, kahit kalahati lang muna, kasi masyadong malaki ang pondo so yung kalahati po i-da-download daw sa local government na gusto mo na mag-i-implement ng programa ng DSWD at ah, yung provincial government na yun which will be signed by the governor and the regional director of the department yun pong pondo na yun eh responsible na po ang LGU. So yung LGU sila na ang all the auditing policies of the government they should abide by it. And after ma-consume yung 6 million, responsibility ng local government na i-liquidate sa DSWD bago ma-release ang second batch ng pondo. So mas mas magiging effective ito kaysa yung kada release for example walang ibang dapat itong daanan kundi sa local government ah facility dahil malayo nga yung national eh kung dalawa-dalawa liquidation tatakbo ka pa ng region malayo pa maghihintay ka pa ng ten days, doubt it if the national government can immediately facilitate the assessment, the liquidation of all districts in the country, dahil po isa lang ang opisina niyan eh.
And aside sa kanilang normal standard operations, ito pa yung dagdag na trabaho galing sa mga pondo ng ito nga former, I doubt it kung mapapabilis po natin, we are talking here of lives of the people, health ito eh. Hindi naman ito rehabilitation, hindi po ito, ito po ay immediate ang kailangan. Tatakbo sa emergency room. Kailangan kaagad ng gamot alam ninyo po yun, doktor po tayo. Hindi pi-pwedeng paghintayin ng sampung araw ito. Kung hindi puputok yan. Kaya po sa akin po bigyan po natin ng leeway naman, lalo na yung mga lugar na katulad sa amin na ang layo namin sa regional ah, department na kung pwde po meron namang existing COA rules. Napakahigpit ng COA ngayon alam natin lahat. Talagang napakahirap ngayon. Kawawa ang mga LGU ngayon, dahil talagang sobrang higpit ng COA ngayon talagang pag-iisipan mo, na tatanungin mo muna sila tama ba itong paggastos ko bago mo gawin para siguradong safe ka. Sa akin po sana naman sa mga ganitong sitwasyon sana magawan naman ng paraan para kaagad na maibigay ang…
Usec. Garin: We will, we will relay and then come, come back to you, magpaalam po kami on how to go about it. Initially kasi nung napag-usapan kasi ang downloading to LGUs when were at the DBM office, ang nasabi kasi nun is hindi kasi diretso sa hospitals, but the premise kasi doon, nagkakaroon ng problema, kaya nga magkaiba yung premise, now that is a very valid reason, before kasi yung nagiging problema na kapag downloaded ang pondo, tapos kasi nag-away si Gov at si Cong or si Mayor ginamit yung ganun hindi nan are-retrieve, that is the problem that we have now in the health facilities enhancement. Kasi…
Question from the Audience: Samin po for sigurado, excuse me, wala pong problema sa amin.
Usec. Garin: Yeah… yeah
Question from the Audience: kapatid ko yung governor.
Usec. Garin: We will make the necessary representations. But for the mean time.
Question from the Audience: Thank you po.
Usec. Garin: Nasaan yung powerpoint? Next slide, next slide, balik, balik, balik. Okay, i-ano ko lang, i-clarify ko lang Cong, i-clarify ko lang Cong, ito ay DOH-retained facilities without downloaded funds. Hindi ibig sabihin nun kailangan may guarantee letter talaga lahat. Minsan kasi, agad-agad yung nagpupunta sa inyong pasyente Heart Center pala siya o nag-aaral siya dun sa UP Visayas so nasa Western Visayas Medical Center siya. Yung pag-download takes time. Kasi may mga documentary, kaya sina-suggest namin na kung wala kayong downloaded pondo dun. Minsan naman mayroong a little miscommunication, na nag-request na pala kayo ng downloading of funds for that hospital kagaya nga namin, we extend our apologies, last week ko lang nalaman yung case ni Congresswoman Lucy Torres na nagreklamo ng si Cong. Lucy, may representative ba sa office ni Cong. Lucy dito? Please extend our apologies. Kasi nung una, actually last week ko lang nalaman yung ganitong problema nung nag-i-ednorse na nga na sinabi niya sa hospital ng pasyente na sinabihan, wala po kayong pondo dito. So medyo hindi nga maganda ang dating.
It should not have been said. Now kung wala kayong pondo, hindi pa dumating, yun pala yung request nila, yung request niya came in late parang nandudun sa second batch. Yung natanggap ng hospital first batch pa lang. So kung ganung problema, dito kayo para mas mabilis. Habang hinihintay natin yung downloading padala na kaagad kayo ng ano request for medical assistance. Agad-agad ibibigay namin yung guarantee letter. Kasi pag may guarantee letter na dala ang pasyente ninyo, parang PCSO yan, di
ba pag dala nila wala nang tanong yung ospital kasi yung guarantee letter good as cash yan. Kumbaga parang SM gift cheque. Okay. The guarantee letter we give it to your office. We send it to your office. Next slide. Next slide. Yung guarantee letter. Okay for those who were asking this is the guarantee letter that we will make. Now kung kunyare buo pa, we will just put it hospital bill. Ilalagay lang namin yung breakdown nung kanya kung may breakdwon. Kung walang breakdown, we just place the hospital bill and the amount. You see PHC 140 yung may number at may mark. Okay that is Philippine Heart Center may corresponding number. That is actually a code. That code will allow us to retrieve the data of the patient. Kaya yung mga nakalagay sa GAA na mga, ito yung mga requirements, yung COA, yung medicines given. That will not be your work. That will be our work. Because that control number will allow us to retrieve all patients’ information from our computer and the computers of the hospital. So yun po yung ibig namin sabihin. So dito tinanggal na rin namin yung pumipirma na si Asec. Gibby Lagahid, Asec. Gibby is kaya nandyadyan siya before kasi siya yung heading PAO office and he’s the EA of Secretary Ona. We also admit na hindi nga maganda tingnan na mayroong ibibigay kayo tapos yung makikita ng pasyente na Asec. Lagahid so nawawalan ngayon ng points na totoo naman na kayo ang nag-facilitate ng pondo. So that’s why the new guarantee letter will just be like this. No signatory. No mention of the secretary of the, no mention of any EA or any personality, yan lang. E-mail namin, just give it. What is important is you give the form that we have, because the hospitals know that when they look at the control number, pasok na kaagad yun. Because that number will be, will corresponding to the amount that we placed there. And that number when it comes to us, compute nang compute na kami. At the end of two weeks alam na namin kung magkano yung ipapadala sa kanila through bank to bank. Yes po? Ay sir, sorry sir.
Question from the audience: Good afternoon Usec.
Usec. Garin: Yeah, good afternoon sir.
Question from the audience: Good afternoon distinguished colleagues. My name is Ted Garcia, I am the Congressman of the 2nd district of Bataan, and a former three-term governor. I have no queston but it might help in our discussion if I explain how we were doing it in Bataan. In Bataan, I know the history of devolution because I was the governor there in 1992. And when I saw that the (inaudible) sabi ko this is bound to fail because yung kaakibat na pondo, wala. And so when I had the opportunity to (inaudible), sad to say akala ko okay na, kulang pa rin. And so what we did is about ten years ago, we entered into a MOA with DOH, where lahat ng MOOE ng DOH will be matched by the province on a one-to-one basis. Binibigyan din ho namin ng MOOE
pati ho yung lahat ng construction so I think it is succeeding becuase now it is perfectly functioning. And talagang napakaimportante po ng public hospital kasi mas mura sa public hospital and kagaya ho ngayon because of that MOA, lahat ho ng pasyente sa Bataan General Hospital which is a tertiary hospital with a compliment of 300 bed eh nakakpaglibre na kami ng lahat ng gusto naming ilibre.
Usec. Garin: Although suggestions are noted sir and in fact we have heard about the arrangement of your hospital. Unfortunately medyo mahirap siya i-implement nationwide nga because of the law of devolution. But ahm, if there is a move to renationalize your services, we will not have any objections..
Question from the audience: But as I was saying, mula nang ma-renationalize ho akala ko wala nang problema because national government na ang in-charge eh andaming pera ng national government, instead of local governments. Yun pala meron pa ring problema and that problem as well when we, pinagtulungan po nam in ng DOH atsaka ng province of Bataan on a one-to-one basis. Yung lahat ng MOOE nila eh minatch namin ng MOOE on a one-to-one basis. Lahat ho ng infrastructure ng construction one-to-one din and so we were able to construct three new, brand new bulding, three, three-storey building connected to each other by a pedestrian bridge. Then ang hospital po namin ISO registered na po. ISO recognized.
Usec. Garin: We will take note of those reccomendations po.
Question from the audience: Thank you very much po.
Question from the audience: Good afternoon, Usec, to my colleagues and to everyone present here.
Usec. Garin: Hi Cong.
Question from the audience: This is not a question. It is an appeal because I share the same sentiments with Congressman Espina here, and with the other representatives. We also have a hospital run by LGU. So ahm, hindi masyadong kumpleto ang aming supplies and medicines. Tapos minsan ang aming equipments dahil sa dami talaga ng pasyente. Ang record namin 130 patients ang nako-confine. Wala pa yung out patient kasi sa Pasay City, sabi nga ni Secretary Ona when he visited our hospital it’s a melting plot. So ah, if I may suggest Usec. Sana’y if, ahm, if pwedeng gawin yung ginagawa yata ng DOH, please corret me if I am wrong, ginagawa ng DOH sa inyong mga national government, national hospitals, na idina-download na yung pondo, and then pwde ring ilagay na trust fund para hindi magamit kung saang purpose ng local government units at ito po ay for
replenishment kasi nga po talagang ah, emergency needs ang mga kailangan ng aming patients. So ganun nga ba ang ano, ang ginagawa na ng DOH sa inyong mga hospitals?
Usec. Garin: Actually mam, Actually Cong, for DOH hospitals, the funds are downloaded but they can not use it for procurement of medicines and equipments. It is downloaded there it becomes a trust fund lalo na sa specialty hospitals because of their status as a GOCC. Andudun yung pera, so every patient na pumupunta dun for medical assistance parang china-charge tapos magli-liquidate sila at the end of the month, na ito yung na-cosume ng one month. They come up with a ultilization report submits it to COA and to us and I believe Congress and Senate will also be copied dun sa utilization report nakalagay doon, downloaded funds ahm, patients given services and then amount utilized, so ganun din po. Our dilemma here kasi, in the general appropriations act, the funds were specified, andyadyan po sa budget na inapprove ng kongreso at senado that it is purely for medical assistance. For patients seeking consult in a government health facility.
Yung procurement of equipments at procurement of medicines, hindi siya nasama dun. So when we had several discussions with DBM, and we asked those questions, we were told na baka i-consider. But because there was also the health facilities enhancement fund that is being given to LGUs, kasama na dun yung facilities anf infra, hindi na naisama, ginawa siya na purely for medical assistance. Now ahm, what DBM told us kasi ito na nga tapos na nadyadyan na yung libro. What they told us is that what can be done di ba may pasyente meron naman dun yung binabayad. It’s income that they get. That income. They can now use to procure medicines or equipments whatever they like. So yun yung sinabing proposal. Now, if we download the funds even to LGU hospitals, granting that COA will allow us, I am sure it is still, it will still, still it cannot be used for procurement of equipments and supplies. Pi-pwede lang siya na parang ganun din, everytime may patient, bayad, bawas, bawas.
Question from the audience: Yes Usec, that’s what I meant yun pong ahm pag anndyan na yung patient we will not buy the equiments, supply, para lang yung director ng hospital meron siyang free hand na makagawa ng paraan kung papaano niya maa-answer yung needs nung aming pasyente. Kasi sa aming LGU, although may mga gamot talaga dahil sa dami ng patients, nauubusan din agad. So pag GL ang ibibigay po natin, hindi rin pwedeng ibili right away ng medicines na kakailanganin ng pasyente yung GL. So baka po pipwedeng mapansin.
Usec. Garin: We will make the necessary representations and ask for the guidelines for LGU downloading citing nga yung sa DSWD. But then allow us to reiterate na
basta pag downloaded sa LGU, hindi na mababawi yun so yung pagda-download siguradong walang problema. Alam natin kasi medyo liquid pa ngayon. Minsan kapag ka end of the year, marami kasi kaming ano eh.
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PARTIAL AND PROVISIONAL TRANSCRIPT
AUDIO RECORDING OF HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS HEARING
Batasang Pambansa South Wing Annex Building
4 August 2014,
DR. LICUANAN: Mr. Chair, I just should respond, at this point, to some of the issues, because I am equally confused and very frustrated, because we really thought we were trying our best to, to do what was right. Let us…let us look back historically. We had a system. The PDAF system was there. … It harmonized with CHED, we, we, cooperated with the – is this on? We cooperated with the Congressmen who were given their PDAF allotment, and we helped them distribute the… the scholarship grants and, in a way that was pretty much satisfactory. It may not have been a perfect system but it was there. It was a system we’ve worked with for many years. And then…
CONGRESSMAN RUFUS RODRIGUEZ: May I object to that because that is not true. That is not the situation during the PDAF. The PDAF did not pass the CHED. The PDAF went directly to the state universities so you have no, you have no totally… totally no intervention. Well in my case, it has... I think most of all or all of us because when we give our… when we give our menu ... to the committee of Cecile here, it was very clear, the SARO, you cannot ask the money… we gave it to the state universities. There was no problem… even when the CHED, because there was no more PDAF then you can go to the CHED. But I would tell you. That we submitted to the Speaker last year. So this is not a post intervention. Before…before the, the budget was approved, we already, the Speaker already gave you already our allocation. Is this not correct? Because we gave our lists, we gave all lists last year… on how… on how to allocate the 14 million. You see. So you know… let me continue that I just tell you there is mostly no intervention by CHED… when PDAF was alive because our SARO, the SARO given goes directly to the schools, to the public state universities and colleges, exactly the situation. So now… the only landmark declaration is now, and we do not have to question that precisely because there is no more PDAF, it is to the CHED. And then we submitted allocations so therefore there is no such thing as post because this is submitted by the Speaker’s office
and the Committee, the Appropriations, given to you before December. And so very clear na sabi ko that is why in the other, in the other departments, madam chairperson. In the other departments, na-download na. Ang DSWD na-download na sa regional office saka central office, ang aming, ang aming DOH nasa hospital na. Nandyan na lahat, wala tayong problema dyan. Now, bakit sa inyo hindi pa na-download dito sa aming schools… which were submitted to you by Sherry long time ago?
CONGRESSMAN ABU: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry.
CHAIRMAN UNGAB: Yes, what is the inquiry all about?
CONGRESSMAN ABU: Ano po ba yung mga rulings natin pagdating sa ganitong klase ng executive session? Dahil pinalabas natin ang media kanina dahil executive session ito. Dahil baka mamaya may makalampas tayo dito na sasabihin natin na hindi naman kaiga-igaya sa pandinig ng iba nating mga kasama, ay ano ba ang ating ruling dito? Baka mamaya paglabas diyan, mayroong magpa-interview diyan, na yun, pini-pressure na naman ng mga congressman ang CHED. Ginigisa na naman ang CHED dahil hindi masunod sila. I think Mr. Chairman we should clarify to ask the ruling.
CHAIRMAN UNGAB: This is an oversight committee hearing. So, it is inherent in the legislative powers of Congress that we can act as an oversight body especially for funds that are also…that are basically public funds, and again I made it clear early that the legislative intent is very clear…is that scholarships must go on…
CONGRESSMAN ABU: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, the confidentiality of executive session?
CHAIRMAN UNGAB: Well of course, executive session. The rule is confidential talaga pag sinabi nating confidential.
CONGRESSMAN ABU: What if a member, what if a member of the Committee on Appropriations or the Oversight Committee or any of, any of his staff after na, after ng hearing eh lumabas at magpa-interview at dini-vulge kung ano ang nangyayari dito, what would be the sanctions?
CHAIRMAN UNGAB: Well, pakiusapan na lang natin, since this is an executive session, dito na lang.
[Laughter.]
CONGRESSMAN ABU: Takot ho ako dito.
CHAIRMAN UNGAB: Congressman Teves, please.
CONGRESSMAN TEVES: …When I submitted…actually there’s no problem in Region 7 as of now. Our Regional Director has been very cooperative …Region 7… so far cooperative naman. … May confusion kaming konti because.. of course… when we try to limit our 14 million, our submissions to the 14 million, I know for a fact that other members of Region 7 cannot even occupy half of that, like Siquijor for example or Congressman Caminero’s district for example… so I … submitted more and I do not know what the rule should be on how we will be using our, our money as a whole in the Region, Mr. Chairman. However, if the case should be, we will be restricted to the 14 million then I would respectfully request that on our next budget for 2015, this should be rectified so that I can accommodate the others. Secondly, of the old scholars that were hit by the PDAF, in which I remember correctly Congresswoman Almario was talking about the HEDF that we’ll be using to pay for the old scholars, the previous scholars when the PDAF was not yet declared illegal… I would like to make sure that it that will be followed. Otherwise, again, Mr. Chairman, I would request that for the 2015 budget, it should be rectified; our 2015 budget should make sure that this would be covered because I am sure that some of them will be graduating already. They will not be able to get their diplomas if they’re not gonna get paid, Mr. Chairman. That’s all. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN UNGAB: Yes, we’ll take that into consideration, your honor. So after Congressman Teves is , Chairman Licuanan.
DR. LICUANAN: Yes, sir. Yes, I was, I was, in the middle of a thought and then Congressman Rufus made a correction. Actually I agree with you for the most part, that most of the PDAF was really direct. But we did handle some of it. Some. But we had a system also of scholarships in CHED, a number of… different types of scholarships.
Okay, so what were some of historical events that took place unexpected by, I think, Your Honors as well as us. We were taken quite a bit by surprise. The first was the TRO on the PDAF and essentially, you know, CHED is the bad guy here. But you have to give us the credit. When that happened, we immediately wrote all the SUCs and said, please take in the PDAF scholars, if they were there from the first sem, keep them on. I’ll make it good to you, it’s my, it will be on, I’ll find the money, I’ll pay you back. My expectation
was that the Supreme Court would reconsider for health as well as scholarships. But we know that did not happen. So, even worse than a TRO, it was declared illegal. We consulted Your Honors because that is very frightening. Here we are, the PDAF is illegal, and in a way you were working out a system where it would be realigned and given to us. Now, what are we supposed to do? We understood it to mean - and I know I don’t have the refinements of whether it’s oversight or whatever - but the fact is my understanding is that - you used the term earlier. Illegal post- …intervention. So in other words, you make the law, you don’t implement it. That was also pointed out, not in those terms, but we had a previous encounter with the Commission on Audit. They had a very serious audit observation memo to us, report to us, that essentially the way we were handling some of the PDAF that came to us as well as the Congressional scholarships that we give out was different from our usual scholarships which followed the same set of CHED guidelines. So that was even before PDAF became an issue. We said, alright. In which case, we will make sure that the same guidelines prevail for all the scholarships that we handle, including the Congressional ones. So, having already committed ourselves to that, when this happened, when the PDAF was illegal, then you presented, and you realigned it to various agencies. We had to do the right thing. We did not want to do anything illegal, we did not want to get into trouble with COA, we did not want to go against very, very vociferous public opinion against PDAF. So our solution was at that time, very clear. In my mind I said, the Congressman will nominate. They can recommend. Of course, that is their right. They do that all the time. These are their constituents. They know, they know the situation on the ground. I already had my script for the media when they say would, “O, may PDAF pa rin ano?” And then you are, you are…what is the term for…you are a collaborator, you’re doing the same thing. At any rate, I had to protect the agency, I had to protect the Aquino government. I had to make sure we played by the rules. And that was all settled. You would recommend. You would tell us exactly who your candidates were and we would apply our guidelines and so COA will be…will have no complaints, and neither would Congressman Tinio or anyone else who wants to… to squeal on you guys. [Laughter.]
So that’s what we thought we were doing. But the system I guess takes time. Essentially what was happening I think on the ground is not everyone got …. The other thing that Congresswoman Almario mentioned was that we were advertising and we were publicizing…which in a sense is true, in the sense that that’s our duty. We have a lot of grants, we have to make this public. But in our adjustment already, internally, we said priority would be given to the recommendees, the listahan of the congressmen. Eh di
bahala na yan. Well, in fact, my instructions to the Regional Directors - please forgive them for whatever weaknesses they may have but this was all so sudden and we are a lean organization. We really do not have the staff on the ground to handle all of a sudden this huge new allotment of scholars and a new system pa, plus we have to deal with COA and the legitimacy of no PDAF, but we have this allocation. So even they have difficulty understanding. Finally, I said, Okay people, this is the way it just has to be. You know, I know it was supposed to be illegal, dapat wala na but actually meron pa, because they are also taken by surprise. In fact, nagmakaawa na rin ako. I said, the congressmen did not expect this, this is something that they had all of this time. Then all of a sudden they are told it is illegal. What do you expect them to do? So at any rate, I tried to get CHED to understand and the Regional Directors. However, there were some who already publicized na. That is true. And there are many people out there, who really think I now have 4.1 billion new scholarships. They don’t think it’s PDAF, they don’t think it’s going to you. These are perfectly intelligent people, they say ”Wow, I will publicize in Sorsogon that, you know, you have all of these extra scholarships. And then I’m supposed to tell them, No! No! don’t do that, because actually the congressmen are all going to get it. So, we have to go through this kind of…semblance. We understand each other. I really want to cooperate.
Now, with regard to your points. Excuse me, please. Congressman Rufus, you have tremendously innovative programs and I really like what you do. Unfortunately they’re a little exotic for our guidelines, which we are bound to follow. So how can we do that, how can we find new guidelines, which would… These are not new guidelines. They are old guidelines with just a few…in fact a few changes, that came from our interactions with Congress. They were the ones who put in some suggestions, we went through some public consultations. But we have to have one set of guidelines. That is what will protect us from being accused of being intimidated by the Congressmen. See? No! We’re not intimidated, we’re not whatever. We have guidelines! And as long as the guidelines are followed, you and I and the government is protected. That’s the reason why, you have to, I beg your indulgence, you have to respect and… these guidelines. Now, your programs. There must be a way where we can handle those. But to be very honest, Congressman Rufus , you’re a little…you’re an outlier. It’s a little bit difficult to handle that you’re sending them to UP, they are going to medicine, for some you pay all the transportation, you pay so many things. It’s not in our guidelines. It’s very difficult to make that part of the guidelines. Guidelines should find the common denominator. Something that will accommodate as many as possible. So yours and a few others - the
Speaker’s, Congressman Rodriguez, uhh, Congressman Gonzales. You have rather exotic needs, which we said we will still try to solve. But unfortunately, our guidelines do not apply.
Now, how is it? I cannot believe... Chair Ungab, that we are so bad! That compared to – there are five agencies you downloaded to. How could CHED…that’s why I’m asking our colleagues here. How could it be that that everyone else is doing so wonderfully and accommodating and everyone loves them. And here CHED is the only one na palpak? Pa’no naman nangyari yun? So that’s… And I will, and I do. I have met our Regional Directors, how many times, Joji? Maybe five times. We call them here every time Sherry texts me and says “More problems. You know, these are the complaints, these are coming in.” Summon, summon please. Bring them to Manila. Let’s work this out. And I know there are some that may be problematic. But for the most part, parang they seem to be already working.
This morning we had another meeting, and I said ano pa’ng mga problema? One seems to be…yung listahan ng congressmen, do not complete their allotment. And so they’re worried about losing that. So we have to find a solution. And maybe this thing of downloading to the SUCs. And if DBM will allow a trust fund. Because DBM is quite against trust funds, to be quite honest. We’re caught. Everyone is applying their rules on us and we’re trying to be obedient. You can’t follow all the rules pala at the same time. Because the rules conflict. Okay. So that might be a solution.
The other problem is – sobra. Because, one, it’s possible that our Regional Directors, in their zeal, already did their job before we told them what the restrictions were. That actually, this is not true, you do not have four point…you do not have fourteen million per district na extra. This will really be for the congressmen. So they had already publicized it the way they normally do, normally do, and they have applications. So, we said, well you have to worry about that as well, may sobra.
And the other one…problem that you always bring out, Congressman Ungab, about priority courses. We’ve tried really to accommodate that within some flexibility. Because we said, okay, may priority courses nga ang CHED. However, each Regional Director has the prerogative to expand it. Three percent. Three percent, yeah. So, keep that in mind.
So…so, I just beg the group to try and come up with a practical solution. I tell you. I do not have an attitude problem here. I am really trying. And I’m a reasonably competent person. I’m a reasonable manager. How am I failing here? When I am also dealing and accepting the political reality that this is PDAF, that we are just changing for this transition year. You have all said, “Next year, dederecho na kami. We are going…” Ano yan, when we are negotiating, they say, “Next year, hindi na sa CHED yan.” Ay salamat, sabi ko. Salamat. Talaga. Because it is really so much. It is a headache. I’d like to find a solution. Please, believe me.
[Audio recording proceeds for another one hour and five minutes.]