CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – Top officials of the Department of Agriculture (DA) who were implicated in past and present cases of plunder including Agriculture Sec. Processo Alcala and his top executives whom he has allegedly continued to coddle, should resign en masse the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said yesterday.
“An entire platoon in the Department of Agriculture (DA) should be replaced amid reports of plunder of funds intended for farmers,” the KMP said as it called for their resignation, noting the apparent reluctance of Pres. Aquino to fire them.
“The continuing plunder of agricultural funds should stop now,” said KMP Deputy Secretary General Willy Marbella.
“We demand that Agriculture Sec. Proceso Alcala and his gang to step down, submit to an independent investigation, and be accountable for plunder,” Marbella said, citing the other agriculture officials as Assistant Secretary Ophelia Agawin and Undersecretaries Antonio Fleta and Claron Alcantara.
“Alcala should not hide under the skirt of Aquino. The schematic plunder of billions of agricultural funds will not happen without the knowledge and consent of Alcala and his gang. A platoon substitution in the DA is in order,” he said.
Marbella recalled that pork barrel scam whistleblower Merlina Suñas implicated Alcala’s office as a key facilitator in funneling government funds to at least two dummy nongovernment organizations (NGOs) allegedly formed by Janet Lim-Napoles.
Napoles, the alleged leader of the network of 20 bogus NGOs, had been an occasional visitor of Agawin and Fleta, her immediate boss, at their second floor office in Quezon City since 2011.
Marbella recalled that Suñas had accused Agawin as a conduit of a web of fake NGOs controlled by Napoles.
He noted that Fleta, on the other hand, was among a core group of officials from Quezon province who were brought to the department by Alcala when he took over in 2010. Upon his entry, Alcala reappointed Agawin and promoted her to assistant secretary in February 2012.
“In 2008, when Alcala was still Quezon representative, he and Alcantara, were charged in the Ombudsman for disbursing P3.5 million in pork barrel funds to a dubious NGO. Alcala allegedly allocated the money to the Alcantara’s family-run NGO, Sir Pelagio Alcantara Development (Spade) Foundation Inc., which made a commitment to give P50,000 each in capital assistance to 65 farmer families, a number of whom have denied receiving the amount,” Marbella also noted.
The KMP, which held a rally yesterday at the DA central office in Quezon City, also called for the “immediate and full disclosure of DA and Department of Agrarian Reform-accredited NGOs.”
“Based on a Commission on Audit (COA) report, the Kaupdanan para sa Mangunguma Foundation, whose president is John Raymond de Asis, was allegedly the driver-bodyguard of Napoles, received P75 million from the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) supposedly for farmer- beneficiaries in Pangasinan, Benguet, and Pampanga,” Marbella also said.
He said that “these DA- and DAR-accredited NGOs, bogus or not, should be held accountable for the taxpayer’s money they ‘downloaded’ from the Aquino government’s coffers through the DA.”
“NGOs who fail to account should be blacklisted, charged, and sent behind bars for plunder,” Marbella added.
