By Kristel Satumbaga
The Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) is forming a fact-finding body to conduct its own investigation on the alleged payroll fraud involving one of its employees.
PSC Officer-in-Charge Mon Fernandez said they signed a memorandum creating a task force that will dig deeper into the matter where the accused, Paul Michael Padua Ignacio, allegedly collected millions of funds from athletes’ and coaches’ allowances over the last five years.
“We want to get to the bottom of this,” Fernandez said after meeting with National Bureau of Investigation agents on Wednesday.
“Our initial thought is, he was not alone in this.”
Ignacio allegedly padded the payroll of athletes and coaches after receiving the list from the agency’s National Sports Affairs section to the human resources department.
Fernandez said they are looking at the names of athletes and coaches that the accused allegedly used. Upon initial investigation, the list included athletes and coaches who were no longer recipients and likewise made it appear that he was also a beneficiary of the PSC’s juicy perk.
The PSC sought help from the NBI after Land Bank of the Philippines, one of the government sports agency’s depository banks, sent a letter to the PSC informing “unusual payroll transactions credited to Ignacio’s account.”
The NBI has already apprehended the accused and was said to be cooperative.
“This is just the start of finding out other anomalous actions of the person. And I would like to emphasize that he has been doing this since 2015. Subject has been doing this already before the new administration,” said NBI Deputy Director Vicente De Guzman III in an interview streamed live by the PSC.
“The PSC assisted us in finding out the violations done and we initially found charges for falsification of public documents and qualified theft. This is a capital offense,” NBI Special Action Unit Chief Emeterio Dongallo Jr. said.
The incident came at the time where the PSC has been tightening its belt due to slashed budget following the coronavirus pandemic.
