National Irrigation Administration (NIA) Acting Administrator Eduardo Guillen admitted that there is corruption in their agency.
During a Senate hearing regarding the investigation of allegedly anomalous irrigation projects, Senator Raffy Tulfo grilled and asked Guillen if he believed there was corruption within the NIA.
Guillen responded that all organizations even abroad, have corruption, something that Tulfo disliked because he was only questioning the NIA and other organizations should not be implicated.
"I’m just talking about NIA. Let’s accept it. The only time you can solve a corruption problem in your agency that you handle is to accept that there is corruption," said Tulfo.
"If you don’t accept that there is corruption, how can you solve that corruption problem? Denial is not the right answer," he pointed out.
According to the senator, only 65.28 percent of the 3,128,000 hectares of total irrigational areas in the Philippines are irrigated and only 38 of the 80 target provinces and chartered cities have received agricultural machinery, equipment facilities, and small-scale irrigation projects as of June 2022.
Guillen said there are 'lapses' within the agency, but Tulfo immediately blocked it and said that 'lapses' and 'corruption' are different matters and the official is sugarcoating the problem.
Tulfo, who sought a Senate probe into the matter during one of his privileged speeches, said the numerous anomalous NIA projects are one of the main reasons why farmers have a hard time increasing their yield.
Tulfo challenged Guillen to admit that there really is corruption so that it can be solved and those who should be held accountable can be charged.
Guillen eventually admitted that there was corruption in his agency and promised to fix the system to address the problems.
