P36 million ‘worms’ bug NCIP chair’s ‘resignation’

HAPPY WEEKEND

Gina Dizon

The commotion over the “resignation” of National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) Chairman Zenaida  Brigida Hamada-Pawid remains to be a commotion, apparently with no official indication of resignation from the NCIP chairman. 

Issues of abuse of authority to graft and corruption remain allegations as the 16-month chairman sits in office.  While  such is the case, allegations of underperformance, corruption  in the form of  unliquidated cash advances and disallowances,  and violations of  FPIC   hound  the  13 year  directors, staff and  changing leadership through the  years.

The current NCIP chairman appointed May 2011 has a term till February 20, 2013. And it means Pawid will sit in office until President Aquino shall appoint whoever shall be in the beleaguered position. And the President still has not appointed one.

That means the NCIP staff and directors shall remain to take orders from Pawid and Pawid shall remain to give orders to staff and directors even to those who don’t like her.

The person being floated to take Pawid’s place is lawyer Percy Brawner, relative of   Ifugao Rep. Theodore Brawner Baguilat and Commissioner for the Ethnographic Region of Region II. Who is pushing for Brawner, I wonder. Anyways, what’s the problem with Pawid?

One NCIP staff said she denied employees some of the monetary privileges they usually receive.  She has suspended OIC-Director Jose Dumagan of CARAGA Region and Surigao de Norte Provincial Officer Vicente Valdoza  for one year without pay for  reported complaints of tribal leaders of said officers’  grave abuse of authority.

She has called for the freezing of the processing of certificate of ancestral land titles (CALTs) until review is over. With review already done, she has not recalled her oral instruction, the staff said.  She keeps on talking during meetings and doesn’t leave a second for staff to talk.  Are these abuses of authority? 

Charges were filed in court and it’s up to the court now to determine whether there is truth to the allegations or not.  While this is the case, NCIP through the years has been a can full of worms. Pawid overturning the tables and being charged with abuse of authority impels the charging of other past and present officers and employees in court instead.   

Reports find out a staggering financial mess with scandalous unliquidated cash advances stands at P36.6 million as of 2009 including cash advances of former NCIP officials.  

The NCIP leadership changed six times with the first chairman by the former executive director of the defunct ONCC Atty David Daoas from the Applai tribe of Sagada, Mountain Province.  After his stint in 2001, Atty. Evelyn Dunuan from Ifugao was appointed September 2001.  Atty. Reuben Dasay.Lingating, a Subanon from Mindanao, was appointed Chairperson and served NCIP from February 2003 to 2005.  From September 2005 to July 2007, Jannette Cansing Serrano-Reisland of B’laan and Bagobo roots was the Chairperson.  Atty. Eugenio Insigne, a Tingguian from the Province of Abra took over  from July  2007  to March  2001, Atty. Roque  Agton, Jr. , a Bagobo from Davao held the chairman from February  2010 to May 2011.

The current chair  ZenaidaBrigida Hamada-Pawid traces her roots from Mountain Province and Benguet, and married to an Ifugao was appointed May 30, 2011 and concurrently serves as the Commissioner for the Ethnographic Region of Cordillera Administrative Region and Region I.

Disallowance or “the disapproval in audit of a transaction” reached P9.5 million.  How is this possible that disallowances this big an amount went unchecked through the years?  Is everyone doing it? How is it possible that personnel assumed to know what items are disallowed are allowed for disbursement through the years?

And where and what were these disallowed funds used for?   There had been no finance-related cases heard to have been filed against NCIP officers through the years so this financial liberalism is left undetermined of who is responsible.  Something mafiatic is seemingly going on in inside NCIP. 

Thirty six million pesos through the years not having been liquidated is a big amount of money. Commission on Audit  records show that  Regions  4,6,7, 9, 3 and the Cordillera Administrative Region    incurred  the highest unliquidated funds  ranging from P3 to P13 million. Was the money used properly? Was the money not used at all?  Where did it go? Who took this money?   Who is accountable?  Why are the seven commissioners per term and the leadership mum about this through the years?  There are seven commissioners appointed every three years, 8 program bureau directors and 7 regional directors.

As floated many times, NCIP has not been functioning due to lack of funds as the major issue; Yet, Santos Jose Dacanay III of the University of the Philippines found out in a recent study that NCIP is rich.  Dacanay said the commission receives donations from international agencies aside from the regular allotment it receives from the government. Where were these donations used for, am curious?

With  no regular press release of what  NCIP is doing  except  scandalous  reports about  violations of  free prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples and  protested certificates of  ancestral land titles awarded by NCIP,  it is strange how this   Commission which is supposed to be  fighting for  IP rights  does not have  good news items of what  the staff and the directors and commissioners are doing. 

Google the net and you won’t get articles good enough of what the commission has been doing, or is doing.  While some in the field level must be doing some exceptional accomplishments left unpublished, news of what is happening in the regional and central level is left almost non-existent. The public deserves every information where public funds are going especially the very clienteles of NCIP- the112 indigenous tribes who compose 15% of the population.

Yet, what do we get. Even a website of NCIP is nada. Surfed the NCIP website a week ago and now it’s gone. Why, what happened?   

While these questions are posed, let us take a look at a brewing case from Nagtipunan, Quirino.  NCIP staff Simplicia  Hagada and  Felipe Lumiwes are charging  their  director  Ruben Bastero for  grave misconduct not having  paid  the amount of P25,000 covering expense  for  a mining forum  in 2009 despite the money  having been released from the NCIP  treasury  claimed by Hagada and  Lumiwes to have been  withdrawn by Bastero.  Hagada and Lumiwes, while waiting for the release of the funds used their personal money to pay expenses of the already scheduled   activity.

Seems NCIP is a sleeping giant with some fat leeches inside its stomach slowly sucking the commission out of its existence.

Even  the very Educational Assistance Program (EAP)  with funds sourced from NCIP’s regular  allotment  and  priority development  assistance funds of congressmen is “palliative because of the lapses in maintenance and management of funds, misuse of funds and cases of unqualified grantees”, the UP study notes. This is evident in the perennial complaints on delayed release and nonpayment of the EAP notes the UP study.

In 2004, stale checks worth P128, 500 in the hands of the grantees were not en cashed.  Who spent the money and where was it spent?  Either the officer/s responsible for this may be charged for technical malversation or other conplaint corresponding to acts of graft and corruption as the case maybe.

Also, reports of the Philippine Public Transparency Reporting Project note that P 6.8 million transferred by NCIP central office to the Cordillera Autonomous Region (CAR), Regions 2 and 3 to different NGOs remain unreported.  Reports have it that either the NGO folded up, nowhere to be found, or plain unresponsive.

It is interesting to know that  no criminal, civil or administrative case  has been filed, nor any NCIP official been suspended for violating COA circulars and   EO 248 or the Rules and Regulations and New Rates of Allowances for Official Local and Foreign Travels of Government Personnel. COA in its reports recommends that legal action be taken against former officials and employees who have unsettled obligations.  

PPTRP forwards “it would help if the new leadership of the Commission will be pressured not only by the COA, but by various indigenous peoples groups that the agency serves and the public to make that accountability happen in the NCIP.”  (To be continued next issue)