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Gordon's Shame
First Published: Reflections - The Philippine Daily Inquirer Publication Date: 11th November 1995 Author's Name: Father Shay Cullen SSC While President Bill Clinton is visiting the Philippines close to the anniversary of the pull out of U.S. Forces from Subic Bay it is a day of shame for the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) headed by Chair Richard Gordon. The Commission On Audit's (COA) report on the SBMA for October 1992 to December 1993 shows that millions of pesos of public funds, equipment and supplies are unaccounted for. Thousands of "volunteers",unpaid labor used by the SBMA in return for a promise of employment went hungry as millions of pesos were being allegedly mis-spent, stolen or lost by gross mis-management by the SBMA. In the first three months of operations alone from October to December 1992 the SBMA led by Chair Richard Gordon spent an unbelievable P10.7 million pesos on gas and oil and more than P5.2 million for similar items in 1993 most of it "without appropriate documents and adequate records" according to COA. Who got the black treasure the auditors cannot tell. Was all of this guzzled by the 388 motor vehicles bought from the U.S.Navy as part of a P31.3 million vehicle purchase? Although a whopping 133 vehicles and heavy equipment were assigned to the SBMA 255 vehicles were sold or junked. This expenditure by the SBMA of P31.3 million for vehicles was part of P124.5 million purchase of miscellaneous equipment and supplies by the SBMA from the U.S. Navy. While a lot of it was useless junk more valuable items cannot be accounted for to this day. "There was no immediate means to detect losses / missing properties ....... after the physical inventory which is being undertaken the missing properties will increase to bigger proportion." The report says. The enormous quantity of the equipment was excessive and unnecessary the COA report says and it had depreciateed in value by P16,2 million not counting the deterioration. Millions of pesos worth of U.S.Navy forms, computer ribbons and supplies were useless and thousands of tables, desks, cabinets, refrigerators, electric ranges, freezers, televisions, washing machines, dryers, typewriters, calculators, tools and other equipments after two years were not used by the SBMA They are just rusting away. But this is not all. Just imagine, the SBMA claimed that it spent P1.7 Million pesos on supplies in 1992 and another P9.3 million in 1993 but that was not correct because the documentation was incomplete. Where did much of this P11 million go? Another P3.5 million worth of supplies were not included in the inventory report as of December 1993 . Where did that go? When the COA demanded the accounting documents supplies were massively over-priced based on the U.S. dollar catalogue price and not on the purchase price. The amount claimed to have been spent on supplies was much over stated the COA report says. You would think that this was enough to break the tax payers hearts but the sheer waste and abuse of public money by the SBMA is highlighted by the 1.2 million spent on photocopying rentals by Chair Gordon's administrative officers. If they had used a mimeograph machine for vouchers and forms they could have saved P501,767.69 . The leasing of buildings by the SMBA to investors was the biggest earner in 1993. They collected P146 million. Any anomalies? As per record there were 32 leases contracts as of 31 December 1993 but no copies of the contracts were submitted to the COA as required by law. The guidelines in awarding leases were not followed. There was no indication by the SBMA how the contracts were awarded, no information as to what equipment or how much investors paid, there was no documentation on how the rental rates were arrived at as required by Executive order No.301. Even if the buildings were the same size and materials etc. the rental rates varied widely. Some were sweetheart deals - disadvantageous to the government the report indicated. A huge crusher was rented out to a construction company for P8000 a month - the rental cost of a two-bagger cement mixer. The auditor reported that he was 'verbally assailed" by the deputy administrator for questioning the lease contracts. The SBMA is different from all other government corporations in awarding contracts the SBMA claimed. Is that so? Besides all this the collection of payments for the houses,beaches, bowling allies etc were done without the benefit of official recipes and the monies were "not deposited in the bank daily and intact" The amount not deposited, wait for it, a massive - P12.3 million. The COA was able to stop the payment in June 1993 of almost P23 million because the deals were illegal and inadequately documented and besides all this P9 million worth of goods were bought without public bidding - Shotguns, radios, horse feed, computers. Then to top it all P65,900.00 was paid for a psychiatric examination fee, well I wonder who needed that?
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