Senate subpoenas ex-PCSO officials with alleged kickbacks

The Senate blue ribbon committee on Wednesday subpoenaed two former officials of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) who allegedly got millions of pesos in kickbacks from the charity fund. Senate blue ribbon committee chairman Sen. Teofisto Guingona III said they have subpoenaed former PCSO general manager Rosario Uriarte and former PCSO advertising and promotions manager Manuel Garcia and also asked the Bureau of Immigration to place them on its watch list. "The committee secretary is hereby ordered to subpoena and to make the necessary representations... so that they would not be allowed to leave the country," he said during Wednesday's hearing on the alleged anomalies in the PCSO. The incumbent PCSO board alleged that Uriarte encashed a total of P315 million in intelligence funds from the PCSO, which Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said may be bigger than the intelligence funds of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. "These are sizable funds which if cannot be properly explained could be plunder," said Sen. Franklin Drilon, chairman of the Senate finance committee, during the same hearing. Drilon computed that Garcia might have received P1.5 billion in kickbacks from the advertising contracts he drafted from 2003 to 2010. An advertising executive named Alexander Quisumbing, who was present during the hearing, testified that he used to deposit cash and checks to the accounts of Garcia for his 40-percent kickbacks. - Kimberly Jane Tan/KBK, GMA News