AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.
Create a link to this page
Copy and paste this link tag into your Web page or blog:
(From Philippine Daily Inquirer)
Byline: Tonette Orejas, PDI Central Luzon Desk; Armand N. Nocum and Cynthia D. Balana
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO-Agriculture officials yesterday assured farmers in Central Luzon that P77.6 million of the P110 million intended for farm inputs this rainy season remained intact and was not diverted to the election campaign coffers of President Macapagal-Arroyo as alleged by former Solicitor General Frank Chavez.
"The funds are intact. Fund releases made before the elections were not readily released until after the officials gave us project proposals that specified the items they were really funding," Eduardo Gonzales, regional assistant director of the Department of Agriculture, told the Inquirer.
A copy of a DA memorandum of agreement with local executives however, showed that no leaders of the farmer-beneficiaries were representatives in the project.
The Inquirer also obtained a copy of a May 21 memorandum from Agriculture Regional Executive Director Cesar Rodriguez where he required a "strict monitoring and evaluation of all ongoing projects."
The one-page memorandum specified "projects being implemented by the local government units and congressional district level."