By Mario Casayuran Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has sought a Senate investigation into the poor financial performance of Philippine Aerospace Development Corporation’s (PADC). Senator Leila de Lima
(REUTERS / Romeo Ranoco / MANILA BULLETIN) The detained lawmaker also wants the Upper Chamber to look into PADC’s failure to increase the national utility of the aviation and aerospace industry in the past six years. In Senate Resolution (SR) she filed, De Lima asked the Senate leardership to direct the appropriate Senate committee to investigate the P28.289-million net loss incurred by PADC in 2018 alone, which was part of the total P178-million loss of the corporation from 2013 to 2018. “The PADC’s inability to manage its mandated responsibilities has gravely tainted its governance, thus resulting to zero outputs from aimed activities or projects, which if implemented adeptly could have profited our economic growth,” she said. The lady legislator based her resolution on the report of the Commission on Audit (COA) that PADC only had a meager P5.92 million in sales, and incurred a total of P34.21 million in operating expenses for 2018, resulting in a P28.289-million net loss. The COA Report noted that among the projects that the PADC was not able to implement included its targeted Gender and Development (GAD) projects and activities, thereby affecting concerned women who could have benefitted by such programs. Aside from its poor facilities, COA reported that another contributing factor that led to the loss of PADC’s revenue was the Absence of Tax Clearance due to cases filed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) against the Corporation in calendar years 2003 and 2004, which prevented it from joining public biddings conducted by various government agencies. De Lima, who is chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Social Justice, Welfare and Rural Development, said it was the duty of the government to ensure that only the offices providing critical services to the country were being funded by the national treasury. “If PADC’s services are better provided by private entities, there is no reason to waste taxpayers’ money to fund an office that is no longer needed,” she said. “Congress, which holds the power of the purse, must be diligent in putting mechanisms in monitoring and ensuring that government funds are being judiciously utilized by respective agencies for the effective use and benefit of the country and of the Filipino people,” she stressed. In an effort to create improvement and major developments in PADC, President Duterte, through an Executive Order, transferred the corporation from the Department of Transportation (DOTr) to the Department of National Defense (DND) last March. 15. De Lima, a former justice secretary, noted however that the deemed changes initiated by the Duterte administration “do not still justify the costs attained by the corporation for the previous years.” In 2017, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III, an ex-officio member of the Governance Commission for Government-Owned or Controlled Corporations (GCG), said the Commission has decided to abolish PADC for failing to design a single plane for the past 45 years but Board Director Rene Abad opposed the move. Created by virtue of Presidential Decree No. 286, the PADC’s main objective was to maximize the national utility of the aviation and aerospace industry.