By Lilybeth G. Ison
MANILA, (PNA) — The Dept. of Agriculture is set to padlock two of its corporations for being implicated in the alleged multi-billion-peso priority development assistance fund or commonly called the “pork barrel” scam.
“I will close them down. My timetable is within this year,” said Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala in a television interview.
Alcala was referring to the two state firms — the National Agri-business Corp. (NABCOR) and the Zamboanga del Norte Rubber Estate Corp. (ZREC).
At present, Alcala said he is studying what to do with the personnel who will be affected by the shutdown who are not involved in the scam and who are not facing charges.
According to the Commission on Audit report, NABCOR and ZREC were among six state agencies that had become “notorious” for being the favorite fund conduits of senators and congressmen, whose funds, amounting to a total of P6.2 billion between 2007 and 2009, ended up with bogus foundations and non-government organizations.
Of those foundations, about 10 to 12 were linked to alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles and had cornered P2.1 billion or a third of the P6.2 billion.
The National Bureau of Investigation has recommended to the Office of the Ombudsman the filing of plunder charges against Senators Jinggoy Estrada, Juan Ponce Enrile and Ramon Revilla Jr., and Napoles.
According to the NBI report, the three senators received P581 million in kickbacks from the NGOs identified to Napoles, which also received hundreds of millions in pork barrel funds from them.
Included in the proposed filing of plunder raps were DA Assistant Secretary Salvador Salacup, who headed ZREC during the years covered by the audit; Allan Javellana, NABCOR president; Gondelina Amata, president of National Livelihood Development Corp. (NLDC); and Dennis Cunanan, director general of Technology Resource Center (TRC) and his predecessor Antonio Ortiz.
The COA special audit report said TRC, NLDC and NABCOR funneled the biggest amounts of lawmakers’ PDAFs to NGOs amounting to P2.432 billion, P1.259 billion and 1.227 billion, respectively; while ZREC gave P282 million in pork barrel allocations to foundations also identified with Napoles.
Alcala has already asked all those involved in the scam to go on leave although the Office of the Ombudsman has not taken administrative action against them.
Salacup has filed a leave of absence, which took effect Tuesday (Oct. 1).
“I’m preparing for the charges, consulting with lawyers who have volunteered to help me,” said Salacup in a phone interview with the media.