OFW Welfare Fund Invested Without Board’s Knowledge, Says Ex-Labor Chief

MANILA, 24 August 2006 — A former administrator of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) invested 459 million pesos of the welfare fund’s money into the Smokey Mountain project without informing the agency’s Board of Trustees, former Labor Secretary Nieves Confesor has said.

In a letter to the Senate committee investigating losses incurred by the OWWA, Confesor said: “The first placements were made in February 1995 by then OWWA Administrator David Corpin without the knowledge or approval of the Board (nor myself as board chairperson).”

“I understand later on (after I had already left the post), that the OWWA administrator was supposed to have authority to do so. This, of course, is very much against good governance,” she wrote.

The Labor Committee, headed by Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, had asked Confesor to shed light on the matter as she was the labor secretary at the time the OWWA investments were made. She cited health problems for not attending and sent a letter instead.

Confesor said the first placement was made in February 1995, when she was busy with the case of Flor Contemplacion, the Filipino maid hanged by Singapore authorities after she was found guilty of killing compatriot Delia Magat and Magat’s young ward.

By June 1995, Confesor said she had already resigned from the labor department amid protests over the execution of Contemplacion. “There was neither time nor authority to raise any questions related to the transaction, nor the way the OWWA was to be governed,” she wrote.

The hearing sought to investigate the alleged liability for plunder of former President Fidel Ramos and others for the loss to OWWA of 550.86 million pesos invested in the Smokey Mountain project, which aimed to develop the former Manila garbage dump into a housing project for the urban poor.

Sen. Miriam Santiago, the nemesis of Ramos, cited the absence of RII Builders head Reghis Romero, who had cited some reasons which Estrada said were unacceptable.

Santiago and Sen. Rodolfo Biazon repeatedly asked why RII, a private company, was given “such a lucrative project” using public funds. Both implied that RII was given preferential treatment.