Ateneo urged to disown agri chief alumnus over fund scams

MANILA, Philippines An alliance of Filipino fishermen on Saturday urged the Ateneo to disown their alumnus, Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap over allegations that he was involved in fund scams in the department. In a press statement, the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) on Saturday told members of the Ateneo academic community to disown Yap because he was allegedly involved in corrupting the fund of the controversial Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (GMA) program. Alleged irregularities such as 52 fake signatures of supposedly farmer-beneficiaries were discovered by the Commission on Audit (COA) to be in the P218.7-million GMA rice program, an initiative of the agriculture department. Aside from the irregularities in the GMA seed fund for hybrid rice production, there is also the alleged P135 million vegetable scam and the P444 million in total donations supposedly awarded to 16 fly-by-night organizations. Pamalakaya national chairman Fernando Hicap asked Ateneo officials, faculties, students, parents and members of the entire academic community to denounce their alumnus' role in the alleged episodes of fund scams in his department. Yap earned a Juris Doctor's degree from Ateneo de Manila's School of Law. He was also a dean's lister when he took up an A.B. Honors Degree in Management and Economics in the same university where he had President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as his economics professor. "We hope the Ateneo folks would see the rationale behind this appeal and go for another crown, this time not in the field of basketball, but in the field of national interest and public trust," he said. Hicap's organization also doubted Yap's sincerity that he would look into fund irregularities in connection with the implementation of government food security programs. "By a nature and by design, Secretary Yap's Johnny Come Lately drama is nothing but a mechanism to stop COA and the public from the discovering more hybrid scams involving his department and the Office of the President," the group said. Moreover, Pamalakaya claimed that the secretary had "no moral authority" whatsoever in conducting an investigation regarding the matter. "He is part of this scam. We don't see any shade of legitimacy on his part to call for investigation. The Filipino people will not entertain this investigative masquerade," said Hicap. Yap earlier ordered the suspension of the distribution of DA funds to private beneficiaries that include non-government organizations and people's organizations pending his department's investigation into the irregularities raised by COA. He gave the nine-member audit committee investigating the controversy until yesterday to come up with its report, saying that the DA needs to announce the findings on Wednesday, or 10 days after having ordered such an investigation. "Yap's intention is to scrap any paper trail that would link him and the Office of the President to these fund scams discovered by COA. His bogus probe is also meant to stop any paper trail that would lead to President Arroyo," Pamalakaya said. According to the organization, it is impossible for government agencies not be aware of these "highly questionable transactions and disbursements of DA funds." "Malacañang and the DA are always in a state of denial. That's the trademark of this administration, so these fund scams at Yap's department are nothing new to the taxpaying people and the Filipino public in general," it said. The group said an independent investigation should be conducted, and that the probe conducted by Secretary Yap's committee should be declared "bogus, immoral and self-serving." "We want the truth to come out. Not the truth in accordance with the corrupt people in Malacañang and the DA. Yap's department if not the center, is one of the centers of corruption in the Arroyo government, so it has zero credibility," it said. - D'Jay Lazaro and Kimberly Jane Tan, GMANews.TV