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Philippine Army’s P8.5 billion unliquidated funds: Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson stresses the need to look into the practice of parking funds for procurement with the Philippine International Trading Corporation (PITC) more deeply in light of the P8.5 billion unliquidated balances incurred by the Philippine Army (PA). During the hybrid plenary session deliberating on the proposed budget of the Department of National Defense (DND) Tuesday, November 16, 2021, Lacson cited the 2020 Commission on Audit report stating that from 2007 to 2020, PA transferred a total of P15.9 billion to PITC, of which P8.5 billion was unliquidated. Lacson also wondered if there are any issuances mandating PA to deposit funds with PITC, as he stressed that procurement by PITC leaves too much to be desired. “I think the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) and DND are more capable of procuring. Since you are the procuring entities, you might be more efficient if you do the procurement yourselves instead of depositing the amounts, your fund, your budget to the PITC, which resulted in P8.5 billion of unliquidated balances,” Lacson said. (Bibo Nueva España/ Senate PRIB)