CoA report shows Arroyo's hand in the cookie jar

“The recent CoA report further verified Arroyo's hand was really in the cookie jar. The lack of a paper trail, in this case, is actually strengthening the allegations against widespread and systemic corruption in the Arroyo regime.”

This was the reaction of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) Labor Center on the news report regarding the Commission on Audit (CoA) report submitted last June 25, 2007 showed that Malacañang in 2006 diverted millions of pesos of calamity funds to “pimp” the Malacañang golf course and finance hotel stays, had millions in unliquidated cash advances, issued loans without any record and the huge discrepancies in the recorded and actual inventories.

According to the news report, CoA noted that the Office of the President (OP) from 2004 to 2006 failed to liquidate a total of PhP 508 million. The CoA mentioned in their report that the supposed PhP 8.8 million worth of donations for calamity-stricken areas were used to improve a golf course inside Malacañang, another PhP 3 million were wasted for hotel and conference fees and the remaining PhP 4 was 'donated' to an unnamed foundation. “Stealing donated money meant for victims of disasters whose lives are hanging in the balance is even worse than grave robbing. The supposed honor among thieves do not exists with the Arroyo's,” said Elmer “Ka Bong” Labog, National Chairperson of the KMU.

According to Labog the huge amount of money could be the source of the 'regular cash gifts' by Arroyo to her allies. “But this is still peanuts when you compare it to billions of pesos involved in the scams like the National Broadband Network and the Cyber Education project, not to mention the highly overpriced Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard which Arroyo and his husband were involved in.”

“We cannot blame nature for bringing us floods and disasters but we can blame the Arroyo's for making our lives more miserable by stealing precious money which could have been used to give our children food and clean water, dry clothes and roof over our heads. The wanton plunder of the Arroyo regime must stop now and this can only happen if this regime is removed,” opined Labog.

“Arroyo is even giving environmentalists a bad reputation since corruption seemed to have gone eco-friendly by their use of recycled brown paper bags to distribute the money,” chided Labog.