MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Audit (COA) has ordered officials of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) in Caraga to return P1.57 million in trust funds that were not used for their intended purpose.
The COA en banc overturned a previous decision released by its Caraga office that lifted the notices of disallowances issued against the NCIP. The notices were released after it was discovered in 2014 that money supposed to be spent for the Mamanwa tribe in Claver, Surigao del Norte, was used for the agency’s operation expenses in the region.
The money came from a trust fund created in 2009 as part of an agreement between members of the Ang Madajaw na Panghiusa ng Tribung Mamanwa sa Taganito ug Urbiztondo and mining groups Taganito Mining Corporation and Taganito HPAL Nickel Corporation.
The two companies agreed to contribute P2 million annually to a fund in exchange for the operation of a nickel mineral processing plant in an ancestral domain.
The money was explicitly stated to be “exclusively used for the socioeconomic projects for the indigenous peoples of Surigao del Norte.”
NCIP officials argued in its 2016 appeal that the use of the money for its operations were covered by terms of a memorandum of agreement. But the COA en banc held in its 2024 decision that the expenses were already covered by the annual budget of the NCIP, adding that those were not related to the purpose of the trust fund.
The COA also said that the NCIP also violated the Government Auditing Code of the Philippines, whose Section 4 states that “trust funds shall be available and may be spent only for specific purposes for which the trust was created or the funds received.”
Those held liable for the disallowances included NCIP regional director Pinky Pabelic, former acting director Dominador Gomez, provincial officer Vicente Baldoza, regional director office-in-charge Elsie Alejandro, former finance and administration division chief Ligaya de Guzman, and accountant Roselle Corvera. – Rappler.com