Serge accuses Noynoy of pork scam cover-up Written by Angie M. Rosales Wednesday, 26 March 2014 A cover-up is what President Aquino, ordering a Palace probe on alleged pork barrel scam involving an agency directly under the Office of the President amounted to, according to an erstwhile staunch Palace ally Sen. Sergio Osmeña III yesterday as he raised serious mistrust over Aquino’s pronouncements. “I don’t like that idea and I’m just suspicious of it. Why would he ask Peter to investigate Paul? Get an outsider to investigate it if he really wants,” he said. Osmeña criticized Aquino’s directive to concerned officials such as Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr., Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad and Cabinet Secretary Jose Rene Almendras to look into the Commission on Audit (CoA) findings on National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) and submit to him a comprehensive report on the issue. Aquino said he already ordered an investigation even before the concerned officials could give their answers to the issue. “They will just cover up their own (tracks). How will you ask Abad, suppose Abad was the one who released the money?” Osmeña pointed out. Some P515 million of Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) of some lawmakers that was coursed through the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF), an agency under the Office of the President in 2012, was distributed to 18 alleged bogus non-government organizations (NGOs) identified with Janet Lim Napoles. The CoA said P25 million of the fund releases allegedly came from the Palace’s equally controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) and the bulk was from the PDAF of some senators and congressmen, reports said. Osmeña, who last week called President Aquino “an awful manager”, said the move of the Chief Executive is another proof of an “awful management” style being displayed by the present administration. “What does it say? It means there’s corruption regardless of how honest PNoy (Aquino) is. It’s a matter of management. If you don’t put a proper management controls in place, these things will always happen. Even on ordinary corporations, if you don’t have the right auditing procedures, control procedures you will get scammed,” he said. “Why would they be the ones to investigate? Why don’t they call the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation)? No, they should not be the ones, they’re not investigators. That bothers me because they’re not investigators. There’s a way to investigate these things. Here in the Senate most senators are having a hard time because we’re not trained investigators. If you give it to the NBI, they can do things in one week which can take me one to two months to do, if at all,” Osmeña said. The government also opposed a petition of key whistleblower Benhur Luy to lift a freeze order in his accounts citing his immunity from criminal prosecution thus exposing many of his and Luy’s relatives unexplained assets. tribune.net.ph/headlines/serge-accuses-noynoy-of-pork-scam-cover-up
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 11:42:52 +0000
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