State workers to fight CCT even under a new DSWD chief

Unions representing government workers are set to fight a protracted battle against the implementation of the P21-billion conditional cash transfer (CCT) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) even under a new secretary in the event that Corazon “Dinky” Soliman is replaced.

The government workers under the group Wage Fight and the National Fede-ration of Employees Associations of the Department of Agriculture (Nafeda) have noted that the CCT would promote mendicancy and could replace a serious job generation scheme to wean the poor away from poverty.

Ferdinand Gaite, convenor of Wage Fight that spearheaded the campaign for higher salary last Nov. 30, slammed Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad for crafting a budget that took P8 billion from the National Food Authority (NFA) and shifted it to the DSWD that Soliman heads.

Soliman’s department gained a 123-percent budget increase.

Abad, Soliman and Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima belong to the so-called Hyatt 10 that broke away from the Arroyo administration amid speculations that the government would fall following the alleged massive election fraud highlighted by the “Hello Garci” scandal.

Rumors were rife in the House of

Representatives that Soliman would be replaced by defeated Liberal Party senatorial candidate Riza Hontiveros after Soliman failed to attend the congressional hearing on the Code-NGO Peace bonds scam that allegedly involved Soliman and her husband.

Last week Soliman snubbed the congressional hearing and told the House committee on good government and public accountability that she was no longer the head of Code-NGO when the bond float happened.

But Anna Marie Karaos, present chairperson of Code-NGO, told members of the good government panel that Soliman’s husband was part of the Code-NGO. This prompted members of the House minority bloc to urge the panel to issue a subpoena for Soliman.

“She has a lot of questions to answer because her husband is the corporate secretary of the foundation which the beneficiary of the P1.4-billion commission. That’s very clear and she was the DSWD secretary that time. It obviously has conflict,” Zambales Rep. Milagros Magsaysay stressed.

During the same hearing, it was found out that her husband still sits as an officer of the Peace and Equity Foundation (PEF), which manages the P1.4-billion proceeds of the 2001 float on behalf of their so-called poverty alleviation projects.

Nafeda had been critical of the CCT and even asked President Aquino not to listen to rice experts from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank (WB) who had been pressuring government to privatize rice importation.

ADB and WB extended loans to the Aquino government to fund the CCT.

These loans, like the Code-NGO bonds, will be shouldered by taxpayers.

Nafeda stressed the CCT takes over the tasks already devolved to local government units and thus funds a program that by law should be undertaken by local officials. –Gerry Baldo, Daily Tribune