CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – The ad hoc committee created by the Social Services panel of the city council started reinvestigating the special Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) “ayuda” (assistance) on Tuesday, Sept. 13.
The reinvestigation aims to address the confusion from the first investigation last year due to the problems encountered in the implementation and address the concerns by some residents here who did not receive the cash aid.
Councilor James Judith, ad hoc committee chair, wants to give importance to the issue due to the huge amount of money allotted.
On Aug. 4 last year, former acting City Administrator Teddy Sabuga-a Jr., former City Social Welfare and Development Overseer Michael Christopher Fabello, and City Treasurer Jasmin Maagad received a check for P767,824,000 from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for the special ayuda.
Judith said he wanted to reinvestigate the special ayuda after former city Councilor Eric Salcedo claimed that last year’s city council has yet to resolve the issue in the assistance.
However, Councilor Girlie Balaba contradicted Salcedo, telling him that the 19th city council has wrapped up their investigation, the reason why they came up with the Community-Based Monitoring System as their resolution due to problems encountered when it comes to the list of the beneficiaries.
Apart from Salcedo's statement, Judith reviewed the proceedings from the past city council committee of the whole meeting with regards to the matter and he found out that there was no liquidation report included.
However, a representative from the City Accounting Office has shown a document during the meeting on Tuesday that would serve as proof that they submitted the liquidation report to the Commission on Audit.
During the committee hearing, Judith asked DSWD Region 10 director Ramel Jamen for the list of beneficiaries who received the ECQ special ayuda in this city as it would be helpful in the investigation.
However, Jamen said that they have no access to the list of beneficiaries as they were no longer the implementing agency of the special ayuda after its budget had been downloaded to the local government unit of Cagayan de Oro.
The list of beneficiaries, the DSWD-10 director said, can only be obtained from the Commission on Audit (COA).
“Since we already downloaded (the budget) to the LGU, it’s now the call and responsibility of the LGU to determine who are the eligible beneficiaries of the assistance,” Jamen added.
City Vice Mayor Jocelyn Rodriguez, who was also present in the committee hearing, wanted the list of beneficiaries who received the assistance to be posted in every barangay to determine if there are beneficiaries listed but did not get the cash aid.
Jamen assured that he will help city officials in requesting the list from COA that will be tackled in the next hearings.
With the committee chair’s dedication to reinvestigate the special ayuda, Balaba brought up a previous issue in assistance distribution involving Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez.
Balaba showed a picture to Judith where the name of Rodriguez was being printed in a box of assistance from DSWD, the issue of which, Balaba said, has been turned over by the DSWD-10 to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
“If we follow up the COA, we should also follow up the NBI so that we would know what happened to that issue,” Balaba added in vernacular.
In response, Rodriguez, the younger sister of Rep. Rodriguez, said his brother has already apologized for the mistake which had been committed by one of his staff members.
Judith considered the suggestion of Balaba but it should be tackled in a separate hearing as they needed to focus on resolving the issues in the special ayuda.
Members of the committee has agreed to wait for the list of beneficiaries to be retrieved from COA for them to proceed with further investigation.
Judith wants to invite other previous officials involved as their statements would be essential in the investigation.