Marcos Wealth: Stolen money stolen again?

[FK]

---

WHERE is the money? As early as last year, the House oversight committee already suspected that the P38-billion Marcos wealth recovered from Swiss banks was slowly disappearing. The committee held a series of meetings from March to April 2005 to try to trace the whereabouts of the fund and to make sure that the P8 billion set aside for victims of Marcos’s human rights abuses was still intact.

Even then, farmers’ and human rights groups were concerned that the government was dipping its fingers into the Marcos fund, especially since it was first made available on January 30, 2004, just a few days before the presidential campaign started. One of the projects cited was the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (GMA) Rice Program into which P544 million from the Marcos wealth was poured. When asked for a list of beneficiaries of the GMA Rice Program, the Department of Agriculture could not provide any.

Our report in September last year already pointed out that the Marcos wealth was tapped for the Arroyo campaign. The DA fund releases included over P1 billion that came from the portion of the Marcos money confiscated by the government. In April 2004, part of these funds were transferred from the Department of Land Reform to the DA. Up to now, the DA cannot account for these funds, including the P544 million in "seed assistance" and the P541 million to bankroll community irrigation projects.

News reports today are quoting Budget director Nora Oliveros as saying the money is practically gone and went mostly to paying salaries of Department of Agrarian Reform (since renamed Department of Land Reform) personnel. Yet in a hearing on April 13, 2005, Atanacia Guevarra, division chief of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) acknowledged that the bulk of the money, or 70 percent, is supposed to go to land acquisition while support services, including salaries, were to be taken from the remaining 30 percent.

An accounting of the Marcos funds still has yet to be made available to Congress.

[samamar21]

i don't
think
its stolen

[FK]

what do you call it?

[tolstoi]

"News reports today are quoting Budget director Nora Oliveros as saying the money is practically gone and went mostly to paying salaries of Department of Agrarian Reform (since renamed Department of Land Reform) personnel."

so this where the money goes..

[slakker]

Our report in September last year already pointed out that the Marcos wealth was tapped for the Arroyo campaign. The DA fund releases included over P1 billion that came from the portion of the Marcos money confiscated by the government. In April 2004, part of these funds were transferred from the Department of Land Reform to the DA. Up to now, the DA cannot account for these funds, including the P544 million in "seed assistance" and the P541 million to bankroll community irrigation projects.

such an obscene amount of money disappearing, should we still be shocked? this seems to be very common here in da philippines.

[FK]

@tolstoi:
well you have the right to believe what the budget director says... but there is also a report stating that.

...in September last year already pointed out that the Marcos wealth was tapped for the Arroyo campaign. The DA fund releases included over P1 billion that came from the portion of the Marcos money confiscated by the government. In April 2004, part of these funds were transferred from the Department of Land Reform to the DA. Up to now, the DA cannot account for these funds, including the P544 million in "seed assistance" and the P541 million to bankroll community irrigation projects.

well as the thread title ends with ?

it's not yet final where the money really went...

[nindotkanon]

I think its stolen. Asa naman nang kwarta? Sus nabulsa na siguro sa mga politiko! Looy ning pinoy! Awam wala nalang na kuhaa kang Marcos kay gipambulsa naman sa atong mga politiko! sus pagka way ayo!

[iloveyou4ever]

Yes stolen again! from people to marcos, from marcos to the present corrupt officials!

[FK]

Use of P100-M fund probed
Marcos loot released during '04 elections

ABOUT P100 million of the Marcos Swiss bank deposits recovered by the government financed the Department of Agriculture's farm inputs program -- which critics claim was used to support President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's 2004 election campaign -- documents from the department showed.

A total of P98.8 million from the Marcos fund was allocated to 13 regional field units of the Department of Agriculture in urban areas like Quezon City and Iloilo City.

Sixty percent of the money was released on May 3, 2004, a week before the elections, according to the documents.

The money was part of the P544 million set aside for the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (GMA, Golden Bountiful Harvest) hybrid rice program, which was allegedly used to induce public officials to support Ms Arroyo's candidacy and ensure her victory in areas where the funds were distributed.

The P544 million was drawn from the P35 billion in Swiss bank deposits of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos that the government
got hold of in 2004, Senate President Franklin Drilon said.

Budget officials have said P27 billion of the P35 billion has been used up.

On top of fertilizer fund

"It's clear that part of the Marcos funds was used during the elections, given the timing," Drilon said Wednesday night. "It was released on May 3, 2004. These were included in the farm inputs of the GMA program, which was used as part of the fertilizer fund."

Drilon pointed out that the P98.8 million was "on top" of the controversial P728 million in fertilizer funds released to lawmakers and local government officials in the run-up to the elections.

The man behind the release of the fertilizer fund is former Agriculture Secretary Jocelyn "Jocjoc' Bolante, whose arrest has been ordered by the Senate. The Senate has cited Bolante for contempt, for failing to testify in the hearings of its agriculture and food committee on the alleged misuse of the fund.

Bolante is still out of the country, the Bureau of Immigration said yesterday.

Drilon also noted that, contrary to usual practice, both the Special Allotment Release Order (SARO) and the Notice of Cash Allocation (NCA) for the funds were released on the same day -- April 28, 2004.

"We will continue to investigate this and this will be a topic of the fertilizer fund investigation," he said.

...

"There are releases to cities -- Diliman (Quezon City) and Iloilo. I don't know what they fertilized there," Drilon said.

full story... http://news.inq7.net/nation/index.ph...story_id=64249

[klavel]

"News reports today are quoting Budget director Nora Oliveros as saying the money is practically gone and went mostly to paying salaries of Department of Agrarian Reform (since renamed Department of Land Reform) personnel."

so this where the money goes..

i think there is a special (budget) alloted amount of money for gov't employees' salaries (from taxes)..just wondering why do they have to use the Marcos money for the payment of salaries when in fact, the said money was for the payment of victims during Marcos' regime...Lack of gov't funds?!? (i don't think so)..

murag naa jud to sa MAAYONG mga kamot?!?!