The Philippine Red Cross (PRC) on Thursday denied President Rodrigo Duterte’s claim that Sen. Richard Gordon had pocketed a huge portion of his Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF), saying that the money used for the latter’s programs were fully liquidated and audited.
Duterte has been threatening to file a case against Gordon for allegedly using PDAF funds supposedly allotted to Subic free port for the PRC.
In a statement, the PRC admitted that Gordon used PDAF money to fund its programs, but “such allocation was allowed under PDAF guidelines.”
“Among the programs funded by the P119.6 million PDAF were the purchase of ambulance units, motorcycle units, medical supplies, disaster preparedness equipment supplies, livelihood and volunteer training, blood service and disaster facility, fruits of hope, medical and funeral assistance, scholarship program, soup kitchen and microfinancing,” the PRC said.
“The PRC faithfully submitted all its fund utilization reports to the DSWD Internal Audit Service (DSWD-IAS) to liquidate said funds as its implementing agency,” it added.
The PRC said the DSWD-IAS had audited transactions between the DSWD and the PRC and certificates of allowable expenses were issued for each one.
“This means that all the PDAF of Senator Gordon from 2004 to 2010 have been fully liquidated, accounted for and audited, and expenses have been certified as allowable expenditures by the DSWD-IAS,” it said.
The Philippine Red Cross chief has been a frequent target of Duterte’s tirades since the Senate started its probe on the government’s Covid-19 pandemic spending. John Ezekiel J. Hirro