While Cong. Arthur Yap is enjoying the euphoria of having to win reelection without benefit of an opponent, out of nowhere came this bolt of lightning that startled his good name as a result of an on-going brouhaha over pork barrel funds going into a bogus NGO. No peanuts by any gauge, the money involved according to the report of the Commission on Audit is P195 million in PDAF funds courtesy of three senators and one party-list congressman. Why in heaven’s name was Cong. Yap’s name dragged in this latest financial mess?

According to news reports, the third district congressman was linked to the creeping anomaly as a result of his assignment as former secretary of agriculture during the unlamented Arroyo administration. As a sort of backgrounder, the same report indicated that the three senators—Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla, Jr. and Rep. Rene Velarde, poured a combined amount of their pork barrel totaling P195 million to ZNAC Rubber Estate Corp. (ZREC) and then siphoned the same to an NGO identified as Pangkabuhayan Foundation, Inc. In an interview with Enrile he said “what I designated were the LGUs [local government units]. And I do not know why ZREC had to transfer the money to Pangkabuhayan Foundation whatever that is.” For his part, Estrada was told that at the time the money was released to its recipient it was on the basis of the agriculture department’s assurance that the NGO in question was a legitimate organization and the lawmakers’ pork barrel would be used to benefit thousands of farmers.

This prompted Estrada to ask Yap and the ZREC board “why they channeled the taxpayers’ money to this bogus organization.” “We’ll work with COA and we’ll open our books to get to the bottom of this. I won’t allow my office to be used as a conduit for debauchery, decadence, dishonesty and depravity,” the senator said. Asked about the agriculture department and ZREC’s role in the use of the four lawmakers’ PDAF, Yap, said: “I do not recall the name of that foundation, but senators and congressmen, then and today, are allowed to endorse coops to undertake projects using their PDAF. “The recipient coops must account for their usage and liquidate the funds. In this case, the concerned NGOs must be called to account for the funds they received,” he said. There you go. With Yap’s name embroiled in the latest controversy, we can only hope that the third district solon’s good reputation as an honest public official will remain unsullied in the same way how he escaped prosecution in connection with the much-publicized over importation of NFA rice during his reign in the same agriculture department.