(Eagle News)–Senator Leila de Lima is seeking a probe into what she said was the poor financial performance of the Philippine Aerospace Development Corporation.
In filing Senate Resolution No. 35, De Lima also sought to probe what she said was the agency’s failure to maximize the national utility of the aviation and aerospace industry in the past six years.
For this, she cited a Commission on Audit report that said the agency had reached a “meager” P5.92 million on sales and incurred a total of P34.21 million in operating expenses for 2018, resulting in a P28.289-million net loss.
She said according to COA, aside from its poor facilities, another contributing factor that led to the loss of PADC’s revenue is the absence of tax clearance due to cases filed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue against the Corporation in CYs 2003 and 2004.
De Lima said this prevented the agency from joining public biddings conducted by various government agencies.
According to the senator, COA noted that among the projects that the PADC was not able to implement are its targeted Gender and Development (GAD) projects and activities.
“The PADC’s inability to manage its mandated responsibilities has gravely tainted its governance, thus resulting to zero outputs from aimed activities or projects, which if implemented adeptly could have profited our economic growth,” she said.
In seeking the inquiry, De Lima said the government should ensure that only the offices providing critical services to the country are being funded by the national treasury.
“If PADC’s services are better provided by private entities, there is no reason to waste taxpayers’ money to fund an office that is no longer needed,” she said.
