Former president and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has millions of unliquidated travel expenses and even spent thrice the approved budget allocation in her last year in office, a Senator said.
Citing a Commission on Audit report, Senator Franklin Drilon said the then Office of the President, whose 2009 allocation for travel expenses was at P244.6 million, has an "actual disbursement" for traveling of 940.6 million.
Of this amount, P848.1 million was spent for foreign trips while at least P92.5 million was used for local travels, added Drilon.
"The CoA has findings that P594 million has remained unliquidated as of year end, including the unliquidated travel expenses," said Drilon.
"This demonstrates the lack of respect of the previous administration of the Appropriations Law," the Senator added.
Drilon lamented the "kind of impunity and abuse" supposedly committed in 2009, and noted that the previous administration had "absolutely no respect for the appropriations done."
Back in 2009, Arroyo and her entourage were criticized for dining and ordering bottles of wine from high-end Le Cirque restaurant in New York, the tab totalling to $20,000.
Arroyo's camp had said it was then Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez who paid for the bill.
In her August 2009 blogpost, economist Winnie Monsod had Arroyo left the country "around 72 times since she assumed the presidency in 2001," an average of eight trips per year.
