Bukidnon 2nd District Rep. Teofisto Guingona III explains how PGMA allegedly overspent government money on her foreign trips, including one in the US which generated controversy for an alleged $20,000 dinner for the presidential entourage. (ART TORRES)

Opposition Rep. Teofisto Guingona III on Tuesday challenged Speaker Prospero Nograles to form a special committee to look into the Commission on Audit’s complaint that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had overshot her allocated budget for travel by at least P119.94 million.

However, a check with the alleged complaint contained in a CoA presentation paper before members of the Lower House has indicated that lawmakers have actually committed a “graver offense” of using up over P1.9 billion in pork barrel funds for congressional projects in 2008.

In a press conference, Guingona accused Arroyo of overspending for foreign and local travel since she took over the presidency in 2001.

“From 2003 to 2008, Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo spent more than what was actually budgeted for her travels,”

Guingona said, as he insisted that the splurge of government funds recently in the United States was not isolated as far as Arroyo’s foreign trips are concerned.

He also chided Nograles for accusing him of misleading the public by insisting that the source of his claim was unreliable.

Although he admitted that CoA has not yet released its findings on the 2008 expenditures of the Office of the President, Guingona insisted that CoA had already aired its findings when state auditors conducted a briefing for House members several weeks ago.

Guingona, who will be fielded as a senatorial bet of the Nacionalista party in 2010, also presented books of the Department of Budget and Management that showed Arroyo spending over P1.3 billion more than the P1.5 billion total annual allocation for travel expenses from 2001 to 2008.

He then cited a COA paper allegedly showing that Arroyo used a portion of the contingency fund of her office to finance her travel expenses.

However, when asked to explain how CoA arrived at the computation when Arroyo’s office has been saving hundreds of millions of its allocated funds for several years now, Guingona could not present a valid explanation.

He said the congressional body that would be tasked to investigate Arroyo’s travel expenditures should be able to reconcile the issue.