The Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission has denied the alleged misuse of funds for the rehabilitation of waterways or esteros in Metro Manila.
Contrary to reports about the agency’s alleged oversight in the implementation of six waterway rehabilitation projects in 2018, PRRC said the projects are “ongoing” and “up-to-date.”
According to the Commission on Audit, PRRC, despite utilizing P107,568,198.93 of its P111,078,000 appropriation, has not completed the six rehabilitation and development projects last year.
The projects that were being scrutinized are the rehabilitation of Manila’s Estero de Magdalena, Estero de Kabulusan, Estero de Pandacan (Phase 2), Estero dela Reina, and Estero de Valencia (Phase 3) as well as a portion of San Juan River situated in San Juan City.
PRRC explained that the rehabilitation and development of these waterways were proposed in 2017 with an approved budget of P111,078,000. PRRC bidded out these projects as early as the last quarter of 2017 with a final contract amount of P107,568,198.83.
“The six projects were expected to be completed within a year. However, since the rehabilitation of waterways is multi-faceted and multi-sectoral, several setbacks have been encountered during their actual implementation,” PRRC said.
“Thus, as of December 2018, the amount of only P29,631,403.29 was paid to project contractors. This is equivalent to only 27.55 percent of the total contract amount,” it added.
As of March 2019, PRRC said that with the increase in physical accomplishments of its project contractors, it paid the amount of P32,444,655.77 to them. This is equivalent to 30.16 percent of the total contract amount.
According to PRRC, some of the setbacks they have encountered include informal settlers re-occupying cleared easement and village or barangay officials opposing the development project.
PRRC said that despite these factors affecting physical performance, it has “initiated and successfully accomplished quality projects, programs, and activities that have direct impact on the improvement of water quality of the Pasig River.” (Ellalyn Ruiz)
