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With just a year until the elections, has the mudslinging proper begun?
“The Commission on Audit (COA) is questioning Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano for allegedly overspending on consultancy services,” reports Journal Online.
READ: Some consultants of senators paid PHP94,000 a month?
The report noted: “Sources from COA said that the disbursement form submitted by the senator’s office show that one of his consultants was paid a whopping PHP94,000 in August 2013, while another got PHP57,000 for the same month.”
The report went on to reveal that “three of Cayetano’s consultants were paid at least PHP250,000 from August to October 2013, according to a certification issued by Leena Fajardo, service chief of the Legislative Cash Management and Adela Fernandez, Director III, Legislation of the Senate Accounting Service.”
The said document was stamped as received by the Legislative Accounting Service on Jan 20, 2014. The document that Fajardo issued is now being examined by a team of ex-Senate resident auditor Mario Lipana.
The report explained that “it was Lipana who had issued an audit observation memorandum to Senate President Franklin Drilon following supposed irregularities in the hiring of senators’ consultants.”
Photo: UNTV screengrab
