The Commission on Audit (COA) found several irregularities in the Armed Force of the Philippines’ (AFP) 2013 procurement of petroleum, oil and lubricants (POL) worth P68.65 million ($1.5 million). The revelation of the irregularities was revealed to a news report posted by Rappler.
According to the State auditors who reviewed the P118.65 million ($2.5 million) Quick Response Fund (QRF), they found irregularities. The QRF is what the Office of Civil Defense transferred to the AFP to supposedly support the military’s rescue, recovery, relief, and rehabilitation efforts for the victims of Super Typhoon Yolanda
The state auditors stated that a memorandum of a memorandum of agreement (MOA) signed by the OCD and the AFP in November 2013 transferred P50 million to the military’s fund from the OCD’s 2012 QRF and another P68,645,912 from its 2013 QRF.
Based upon the records obtained by COA, Petron Corporation was paid P58,162,738 as “payment for POL products” and the balance was listed as “payment of withholding tax in favor of Petron Corp.” The POL disbursement was supposedly the biggest, accounting for 98% of the total amount spent by the OCD for its Yolanda-related operations.
COA also revealed the purchase anomalies of the AFP, as they discovered that the mode of procurement for the POL was through a repeat order, not through an emergency procurement.