Telco giant PLDT Inc. announced the “voluntary separation” of senior executives, including its Chief Financial Officer, following its probe into a massive P33 billion capital expenditure budget overrun. In disclosures to the Philippine Stock Exchange, PLDT said its Senior Vice President, CFO and Chief Risk Management offcer Anabelle L. Chua has availed of early retirement effective April 16, 2023. Also retired was SVP and Network Head Mario G. Tamayo effective April 14, 2023 while SVP and Chief Procurement Officer Mary Rose L. Dela Paz voluntarily resigned also on April 14. In a separate disclosure, PLDT said its Vice President Wilson S. Bobier also voluntarily resigned last April 16. His LinkedIn profile said he is Vice President for Network Build - Program Resource & Integration Management. Another executive, Vice President Alexander S. Kibanoff availed of the company’s Manpower Reduction Program but his separation may not be connected to the budget mess since he is with the Human Resources department. PLDT disclosed last month that its “forensic review of the circumstances surrounding the elevated capital expenditure commitments disclosed on December 16, 2022 is substantially complete.” “The review, which was conducted by external counsel with the assistance of accounting and audit consultants, focused on the period 2019-2022 and identified no evidence of fraud, intentional concealment, or bad faith conduct on the part of any employee of the Company and no basis to restate the Company’s historical financial statements,” it noted. PLDT said it has adopted and implemented, or is in the process of implementing, various operational enhancements to its policies, procedures and controls relating to CapEx management processes. On December 16, 2022, PLDT issued a disclosure about its elevated CapEx spend which included an estimated CapEx budget overrun of approximately P48 billion, net of advances to vendors. “This amount represented management’s estimate of the outstanding commitments to its major vendors for the acquisition of property and equipment post-2022 after the anticipated cancellation or amendment of certain outstanding purchase orders,” PLDT said. It added that, “The Company has completed discussions with its major vendors representing approximately 80 percent of its outstanding CapEx commitments as of December 31, 2022. That effort resulted in the Company’s entry into Settlement and Mutual Release Agreements with its major vendors in March 2023.” Those agreements have the effect of reducing the Company’s outstanding commitments to these vendors for the acquisition of property and equipment post-2022 to approximately P33 billion, net of advances paid to these vendors. PLDT said it plans to engage in similar discussions with non-major vendors to achieve similar results.