COA: P1.3B from donated Meralco shares still unspent in 2012

Some P1.38 billion earned from the sale of donated Meralco shares during the Arroyo administration has remained untouched up to now, and the Commission on Audit (COA) wants President Benigno Aquino III to task a group to decide who should utilize it.

The money, from the sale of more than three million Meralco shares donated to the Office of the President during the late President Corazon Aquino’s time, has remained untouched since the Arroyo administration decided to sell them in 2008.

“Management has not prepared a Special Budget for the utilization of donations from Benpres Corporation in such projects in economic development according to a National Priority Plan amounting to P1,383,314,609.05 as of December 31, 2012,” the COA report, released Monday, said.

“We reiterated our previous year’s recommendation that [the Office of the President] require the authorized official concerned to prepare a Special Budget for approval of the President taking into consideration the purposes of the said donated amount,” the report’s official recommendation added.

According to the Deed of Donation signed in 1990 shortly after the Luzon earthquake, the donor, Benpres Corporation, which is now the Lopez Group of Companies, donated 3,333,333 Meralco shares to the Office of the President.

The document said that the shares “could be used in such projects in economic development according to a national priority plan as it may determine such as agrarian reform, assistance to victims and areas affected by the recent earthquake and rehabilitation of depressed areas.”

But 14 years after the donation, Malacañang has yet to determine how the money will be used.

The same COA report quoted the Office of the Executive Secretary as saying that it is “presently reviewing possible alternatives on the utilization of said fund, for purposes of policy direction.”

As of the end of 2012, the donated amount remained intact and unused with the Bureau of Treasury. –Patricia Denise Chiu/KBK, GMA News