Press Release
May 20, 2009

Press statement of Senator Loren Legarda

On Balikatan fund probe

An investigation on the use of the US-RP Balikatan funds should be undertaken in view of a Commission on Audit (COA) report that more than P240 million in unused funds for 2006 and 2007 were not returned to the national treasury.

While the unused funds had been found by COA to have been put in trust at Land Bank of the Philippines for the Wesmincom of the AFP, it must be determined whether that diversion is allowed by law and by the agreement between the Philippines and the US regarding the use of Balikatan funds.

This development somehow supports a claim made by a female navy officer alleging irregularities in the disbursement of Balikatan funds.

On RP Anti-Torture Law

The United Nations had urged the Philippines to enact a law specifically penalizing all forms of torture, although the contention of our government is that the crime is already covered by our Revised Penal Code.

I think the UN proposal should be looked into because the passage of an Anti-Torture Law would make clear to all government security forces, including those that thread legal bounds in operating, that torture is not a state policy.

An Anti-Torture Law would even complement the Revised Penal Code.

On Compostela landslide

How many more of our countrymen need die before the government undertakes an honest-to-goodness mapping of geo-hazardous areas in our country, and the transfer of people living there to safer grounds?

The deaths from the Compostela landslide are preventable if only the people had at least been evacuated, if not permanently transferred to another location.

Typhoons, coupled with the denudation of our forests and soil erosion, make communities in and around hills and mountains vulnerable to landslides. But it seems government is in a catatonic state in as far as addressing this problem is concerned.

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