THE Department of Information and Communications Technology’s (DICT) transfer of P1.1 billion to the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) for the implementation of a national broadband project during the Duterte administration was not authorized by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
Budget acting Director Perpetual Judea Quiazon made the statement before a hearing of the joint House Committees on Good Government and on Information Technology late Tuesday afternoon.
“Based on records of the bureau concerned or DICT, there was none. There is no authority for the transfer issued by the DBM,” Quiazon told lawmakers on the questioning of Northern Samar Rep. Paul Daza.
Daza has earlier questioned the way the MMDA has spent the funds, saying it bid out the P1.1 billion project for the National Capital Region (NCR) Fiber Optic Backbone Development and is now set to award the contract to the winning company, which was a lone bidder.
Quiazon said the DICT violated Section 78 of the General Appropriations Act’s (GAA) general provisions, which provides that the DBM “should authorize or approve modifications to the budget from one allotment class to another, from an operating unit to another, and within a special purpose fund.”
Daza said during the hearing that then DICT secretary Emmanuel Caintic continued the fund transfer despite a legal opinion from the agency’s legal team, the DICT’s Office of Assistant Secretary to Legal Affairs (OASLA), that the move was “ultra vires” or beyond what the law allows.
“The download was illegal and against the legal opinion of their own lawyer in DICT,” Daza said, urging his colleagues “to do something about this and not to allow usurpation or wastage of this P1.1 billion.”
Caintic told the joint panel that the agency’s move had a precedent, and that he was given a legal advice by an MMDA official that the transfer of fund was above board.
“The Free Wifi law allows for DICT to coordinate with national government agencies and LGUs for the implementation of the free wifi,” Caintic said. “I was given legal advice that the MMDA has the capability to do it. I was not asking for an ICT aspect (but) the digging, civil works. The civil works is gonna be a tremendous project management challenge in Maynila. The MMDA can do that.”
The MMDA defended the fund transfer, saying there was nothing illegal about it especially since it was not the first time that they received funding from other agencies.
Acting MMDA chair Romando Artes Artes late last month said the MMDA had also received funds from the Department of Transportation (DOTr) for the implementation of the EDSA bus carousel stations and sewerage treatment projects on Roxas Boulevard as part of the Manila Bay cleanup drive.
Artes said Caintic asked for MMDA’s help in implementing the broadband project because DICT had a low budget utilization rate at the time.
San Jose del Monte Rep. Florida Robes, chairperson of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability, said now Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos, who was a former chairman of the MMDA, favors returning the transferred funds to the DICT.
MMDA deputy chairman Francisco San Juan Jr. said they are not objecting to the return of the funds, but the matter should be thoroughly reviewed first.
“After hearing this information… this needs to be reviewed thoroughly. And as far as we are willing to give back the funds to DICT, then it would be better that the agencies concerned, plus the recommendation from the committee, will be taken all together to come up with a win-win solution for everybody… We are not objecting to returning the funds,” San Juan said.
