I believe that Sen. Franklin Drilon is on the right track in calling for an investigation into the alleged misuse of a $21.9-million World Bank loan to the Supreme Court.
The World Bank approved the $21.9 million loan for the Judicial Reform Support Project (JRSP), which seeks to enhance the Judiciary’s efficiency and integrity. And if reports are accurate, the bank now wants the Supreme Court to refund a total of $199,900 covering “70 payments” deemed “ineligible” or unauthorized under the terms of the JRSP.
Drilon is right: Financial arrangements like the JRSP loan “constitute a future financial drain on the already limited monetary resources at the disposal of the government” and therefore “there is a need to closely monitor the management and disbursement of such funds and institute improved safeguards in future general appropriation measures.”
I am sure that with the alleged mismanagement of the funds by the Supreme Court, the World Bank would now think twice about extending the country more loans for urgent projects.
The trouble with some of the recipients of foreign funding is that they tend to use them as they please, not according to the agreed terms of reference.
It would seem, based on the recent memorandum of the World Bank, that Court Administrator Midas Marquez used JRSP funds like a drunken sailor, buying laptops and paying for the food and airfare of justices attending conferences abroad. No wonder World Bank is very sore. Chief Justice Renato Corona and his henchman, Marquez, should explain this to the Filipino people in the interest of transparency and accountability.
—JANINE DELA ROSA,
janine_delarosa12@yahoo.com