Press Release
November 15, 2008

Noynoy: Jocjoc's testimony full of inconsistencies

In his testimony at the Senate hearing last Thursday, former Undersecretary Jocjoc Bolante was inconsistent on two points: first, that his only obligation vis-a-vis the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani Program was to disburse funds to regional field units (RFUs) of the Department of Agriculture (DA); and second, that all proponents can prove that no wrongdoing was involved in the release of these funds.

What were Jocjoc's responsibilities as Undersecretary? A memo from then Secretary Luis P. Lorenzo gave Mr. Bolante specific instructions to assess, evaluate and approve all requests for fund assistance under the program. Clearly, this goes beyond the mere disbursement of funds that Mr. Bolante insisted was his sole responsibility at the DA.

Where did the money go? At the hearing, we showed Mr. Bolante a sample Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between a DA RFU and an LGU beneficiary of the fund, and asked him to explain why its content was limited to the process by which the funds would be released, with no information on the proposed project's objectives and mechanics. By way of explanation, Mr. Bolante told us that the details we were looking for could be found in the annexes which were attached to all the MOAs signed between the DA RFU concerned and beneficiary LGUs. A check on the large pile of MOAs submitted to the Senate, however, revealed that no annexes were attached to any of these MOAs. This has led us to seriously doubt the existence of these purported annexes.

Was there any effort to ensure that the funds were used efficiently? When asked how the allocations to LGUs were arrived at, Mr. Bolante could offer no coherent explanation, except for the fact that LGUs were asked to "make up the difference" in cases where the allocation was found to be insufficient. This can only lead us to conclude that funds were released with no clear objectives in mind.

Mr. Bolante wasted a golden opportunity to shed light on the fertilizer fund scam. These incoherent statements only gave us more reason to believe that he is not telling the public the truth that they have waited three years to hear from him.

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