MASANTOL, Pampanga\u2014Several fishermen here, who were among the 2,494 residents who got letters from the Commission on Audit\u2019s special audits office (SAO), have denied receiving in 2009 agricultural kits worth P35,781 each from the government\u2019s share of royalties from the Malampaya gas project in Palawan.
\nThe total amount of the kits supposedly distributed here is P89.2 million.
\nArnel Cunanan, 49, said his signature on the list sent by the SAO was falsified. \u201cOn top of not receiving or getting anything, I am not qualified to be a beneficiary because I don\u2019t own a piece of land,\u201d he said.
\nCunanan said he works as a fishpond caretaker in his village, Bagang, which is less than 10 kilometers from the mouth of Manila Bay.
\nHe is No. 174 in the SAO list that is attached to the July 13 letter of SAO Director Susan Garcia.
\nCunanan and his supposed fellow recipients alerted the Inquirer about the letters only on Friday when they recovered the things they kept in an evacuation center during 6-foot high floods in August.
\n\u201cWe suspect this is a scam made at our expense. We appeal to the COA to erase our names on the list because we have no accountability whatsoever. We did not get anything or signed anything,\u201d said Teody Salarda, former council member of Bagang.
\nThrough the letter, Garcia informed the alleged recipients that the SAO is \u201cconducting a sectoral performance audit on the receipt and utilization of Malampaya Funds during CYs 2002-2011.\u201d
\nShe said the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) was one of the agencies covered by the audit.
\n\u201cRecords of DAR disclosed that in December 2009, certain amounts were transferred to Kaupdanan para sa Mangunguma Foundation Inc. (KMFI) for the Farming Yield Emergency Contingency Project,\u201d Garcia said.
\nEfforts to find contacts to KMFI failed.
\nAsked about COA\u2019s special audit on Malampaya funds, Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes said: \u201cI heard about it.\u201d He said he was checking the background of KMFI.
\nGarcia said: \u201cAmong the documents submitted by KMFI to liquidate such funds is a list of beneficiaries, copy attached, with you as one of the recipients of one agricultural input package consisting of heavy duty sprayer, organized container, [agricultural] paraphernalia, gloves, various seeds and seedlings with each package costing P35,781.\u201d
\nThe letter came with a reply form and self-stamped envelope, which they have not used yet.
\nGeorge Viray, also listed as a recipient, said he was shocked that his brother Eugenio was included in the list when the latter could not even read or write.
\nHe said Bagang village chief Jesus Velasquez had not met with KMFI or supplied them a list of beneficiaries. Viray said he was surprised that his son, Lou, was in the list.
\nFormer Vice Mayor Marcelo Lacap said many residents from Masantol\u2019s 26 villages had him asked to remove their names from the list.
\nThe COA 2010 report showed that from 2002 to 2010, P23.601 billion of the Malampaya funds were released to various government agencies and to the province of Palawan, an Inquirer story in 2011 showed.
\nNational government agencies received P19.643 billion, and only 1.27 percent of this went to the Department of Energy for the electrification of 211 villages.
\nThe remaining 98.73 percent, or P19.39 billion, was used for various projects other than exploration, development and exploitation of energy resources. <\/p>\n