COA: Pimentel, Trillanes listed as Senate's top spenders

Senator Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III incurred the most expenses in 2017 amounting to more than P127.8 million when he was still the Senate President, according to a report by the Commission on Audit released on Tuesday.

Based on the itemized list signed by supervising auditor Olympia Balugay, the office of Pimentel spent the most for staff salaries and benefits amounting to P49.2 million followed by professional and consultancy fees worth P15.7 million.

He also had extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses worth P11.7 million from January 1 to December 31, 2017.

The COA report said the office of opposition Senator Antonio Trillanes IV was the second highest spender at P87 million, with consultancy fees also worth around P15.7 million while P39.8 million went to salaries and benefits of his staff.

Other offices who spent more than P80 million include Senators Manny Pacquiao (P86.4 million), Risa Hontiveros (P85.2 million), Bam Aquino (P85 million), and Ralph Recto (P84.4 million).

Senator Joel Villanueva had the least expenses in 2017 at P63.2 million.

The COA said the combined salaries of all 24 senators, including former Senator Alan Peter Cayetano before his appointment as Foreign Affairs chief, reached P34.3 million in 2017.

'Expected'

Pimentel said he already expected that he would post the biggest expenses in 2017 as he was the Senate President then.

“That is expected. The Senate President is allocated a higher budget, because as the head of agency he also has many additional responsibilities and functions,” he said in a text message sent to GMA News Online on Wednesday.

“Let us look at past years' COA reports and find out who were the biggest spenders in the Senate. If it is not the Senate President then that would be the biggest surprise!” he added.

Pimentel further said the Senate President’s annual budget is the biggest among senators. Hence, the Senate President being the biggest spender should come as no surprise.

He added that what should come as "pleasant news" is the fact that for the year 2017 he does not know of any issue involving disallowance by COA for the entire account of the Senate.

“Hence, all expenses were found to be in order as far as I know,” he added.

However, he said, COA should have acted quicker and should not have released 2017 findings in 2019.

“They should have released these the year after (in 2018)!” said Pimentel.

Same budget allocation

Meanwhile, Trillanes said every senator has the same budget allocation and his office only utilized those without any irregularity.

“My office merely utilized those allocations instead of realigning them for other purposes. Just to be clear, the COA report didn't cite any irregularity on my expenditure,” he said in a separate text message sent to GMA News Online. —KG, GMA News