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InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
MANILA, Philippines – (UPDATE 4 - 6:35 p.m.) The seven Catholic bishops embroiled in the scandal over the alleged misuse of funds by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office are returning the vehicles they received from the agency.
The PCSO is mulling over an auction of the vehicles returned by the bishops, according to PCSO general manager Joey Rojas, and the proceeds from the auction could be given to the archdioceses that returned these.
However, Benigno Aguas, the assistant general manager for corporate planning, said that since it was the PCSO board that approved the grant of the vehicles, the board must also decide first whether or not to take these back.
Meantime, four of the vehicles which have been returned as of Wednesday are temporarily being kept at the PCSO’s parking lot at the PICC.
Six of the seven prelates - Rodolfo Beltran (Bontoc), Leopoldo C. Jaucian (Bangued, Abra), Martin Jumoad (Isabela, Basilan), Juan de Dios Pueblos (Butuan), Orlando B. Quevedo (Cotabato), and Romulo G. Valles (Zamboanga) - showed up at Wednesday’s Blue Ribbon committee hearing into the controversy.
The seventh, Archbishop Ernesto A. Salgado of Nueva Segovia, is out of the country and was represented by Auxiliary Bishop David Wiliam Antonio.
The six were accompanied by Cardinal Ricardo Vidal of Cebu and Tandag Bishop Nereo Odchimar, outgoing president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.
The bishops from Northern Luzon brought the vehicles donated to them to the Senate and said these were ready for immediate turnover to the PSCO.
Senator Teofisto Guingona III said the turnover would take place after the hearing.
In his statement, Butuan City Bishop Juan De Dios Pueblos expressed regret for writing former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to ask for a four-wheel drive vehicle as a birthday gift.
"I admit my personal lapses in requesting the vehicle from the former president,” Pueblos said.
Quevedo, in his statement, clarified that what he had received was not a sports utility vehicle but a Toyota Hi-Ace Grandia van. So did Valles.
Beltran, on the other hand, said he had asked the PCSO for assistance to purchase a secondhand pickup truck for his diocese. He said he bought the 1997 model of a priest classmate and kept the remaining money in the diocese's charity fund. He also said the diocese had received funds for the purchase of an L-300 van for the Social Action Center.
Reacting to the bishops' statements, Senator Vicente Sotto III said, "If I could object to the deicision of the bishops to return the vehicle, I would," and suggested the PCSO not accept the returned vehicles.
His suggestion was later backed by Senator Jinggoy Estrada.
But Quevedo, speaking for his fellow bishops, said that they had "agreed that even if (the donations were) not unlawful and not unconstitutional, we believe it is important for us to clear everything in the air and return the vehicles."
He also rued the "false reports" about the bishops' receiving Pajeros that "scandalized the country."
PCSO chair Margarita Juico was jeered by the gallery when she denied having described the donated vehicles to media as "Pajeros."
She also explained that the problem with the donated vehicles was that the money for their purchase was sourced from the PCSO's charity fund, which is used to donate ambulances and medical services, and not from the agency's "grants and subsidies" fund.
Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Esteban Conejos was also at the hearing. The Department of Foreign Affairs had received PCSO funds to pay the “blood money” required to spare the lives of overseas Filipino workers sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia.
