Puno brod probe sought

MANILA, Philippines--With “enough prima facie evidence,” the Senate will ask the Office of the Ombudsman to investigate a brother of Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno and other persons for the alleged irregular use or even abuse of billions of pesos in road user’s taxes.

Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago plans to file a resolution in the Senate next week asking the Ombudsman to conduct a preliminary investigation of Rodolfo “Dodi” Puno, the executive director of the Road Board from 2005 to 2007, “and other persons who may have conspired with him in these anomalous transactions which remain unexplained until now.”

Santiago made the announcement following a joint inquiry held on Friday by her economic affairs committee and the public works committee.

The two committees looked into the use of the road user’s tax, which is collected yearly from car and vehicle owners every time they register their vehicles.

The committees based the recommendation to investigate on the Commission on Audit (COA) report on how the road user’s tax was spent.

The report led Santiago to declare at the hearing that “this is the biggest scandal of the decade” because officials did not follow guidelines and turned the funds into a pork barrel bigger than what the President or Congress was receiving.

Public Works Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane chairs the seven-member Road Board.

The board has a secretariat led by the executive director, who, Santiago said, was “in effect a dictatorial king of a financial empire who is accountable to no one.”

Puno had been invited to attend the hearing. But he advised the committees that he had a prior engagement in Baguio City.

In a phone interview, Puno denied that he was on top of the decision making in the Road Board.

He said he was a mere “paper shuffler,” and that it was the board that decided on who should receive funding based on submissions by implementing agencies.

“I just [put it on the] agenda … We recommend based on the criteria as defined by the manual,” he said.

Puno also told the Inquirer that he believed the Road Board would be able to explain the questions of the COA.

At the hearing, Santiago said that from 2001 to July 2009, the government was able to collect P56.5 billion in road taxes.

The road tax collection is put in a trust fund that is to be used only for four purposes—road maintenance for national roads, road maintenance for local roads, antipollution projects and road safety projects.

Santiago sought explanation from Ebdane on a COA report on the expenditure of the road user’s taxes from 2001 to 2008, where it was stated that the Road Board had violated “existing budget, auditing and accounting rules and regulations.”

‘Unreconciled’ collection

What particularly riled Santiago was the COA finding that there was an “unreconciled” road tax collection of P1.2 billion reported by the Land Transportation Office (LTO) and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) from 2001 to 2008.

That tax collection reached P53 billion according to the LTO, and about P51 billion according to the BIR.

“This discrepancy remains unreconciled until now,” Santiago said.

There was also a finding that the Road Board made a P1.4-billion “overdraft of its allotment” of the tax.

Santiago also questioned why, in 2007, the Road Board allotted P24.7 billion in allotments, a big jump from the P9.6 billion in allotments made in 2006.

“Is it because [2007] was an election year?” Santiago said, referring to the midterm polls held in that year.

Speaking with reporters later, Santiago said she suspected that the money was used for the election campaign at that time.

Other findings

The other COA findings of alleged violations were overstatement of receivables amounting to P160 million, unreliable yearend balances of inventory accounts (P31.6 million), unreliable property, plant and equipment balances (P453 million), invalid charges (P76 million), irregular issuance of gasoline to private vehicles (P0.48 million) and noncompliance with prescribed controls on fuel consumption, among others.

Santiago asked Ebdane to submit documents to explain these expenditures, and the latter promised to do so.

Ebdane later told reporters that there was a need for the Department of Public Works and Highways to respond to the questions of the COA.

“[The response] will be based on the records and, at the end of the day, we will know the violations, if there are any,” he said.

'Palakasan’

Santiago first mentioned Puno in connection with a complaint of a provincial administrator in Iloilo: A 600-kilometer road in the province was purportedly given by the Road Board an allotment of P4 million, as compared to an allotment of P12 million for a 1.5-km road in a municipality, which was given only three months after it was requested.

“Palakasan pala,” she said, adding that the latter allotment was apparently given on Puno’s “say so.”

Santiago also said it appeared that Puno tended to choose people he favored in granting these allotments.

She said that after six months, the 1.5-km municipal road was destroyed, and that upon the COA’s investigation, it was reported that this was due to floods.

She said it may have been due to substandard materials.

The senator asked Ebdane and Puno’s successor, Danilo Valero, for Puno’s background, but both men said they did not know the latter personally.

Allotment for PNP

At a news briefing after the hearing, Santiago said she was “convinced” that there was prima facie evidence against Puno.

“He is the brother of Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno. Maybe that explains why there is an allotment for the PNP (Philippine National Police),” she said.

Santiago was referring to a COA finding that the PNP, an agency under Secretary Puno, was given P300 million for the Out-of-School Youth Training Emergency Response or Oyster, a program that involves young people helping maintain roads.

She said this should have been given to the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority.

Santiago said she would recommend an amendment of the law on the road user’s tax so that the Road Board—to be composed of civilians and not government officials—would be able to meet regularly.

Ebdane liable

As to whether Ebdane was liable, Santiago said this would depend on the Ombudsman.

“But for me, an executive director of the secretariat of the Road Board should be made accountable,” she said, adding that Dodi Puno et al. were liable for irregular use or even abuse of public funds.

But Dodi Puno said there were no irregularities in the funding of the projects as these were requested by the implementing agencies.

He said the Road Board was a funding agency that did not initiate projects, and that he had not encountered “any overdraft situation” there.