Manila: Two senior Philippine government officials are facing charges over the alleged arbitrary “realignment” of some P31.9 billion (Dh2.5 billion) outside the budget approved by Congress during the fiscal year 2011-2012.

An investigation by the office of the Ombudsman found that Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad and his deputy, Undersecretary Mario Relampagos may have committed technical malversation and could face administrative charges after they ordered the reallocation of billions of pesos of funds already earmarked for certain government projects, to other areas that were not included in the programmed national budget for that particular fiscal year.

The funds were savings accumulated from various government projects, which were lumped together under the Disbursement Acceleration Programme (DAP).

“The special panel of field investigators disclosed that Secretary Abad and Relampagos authorised the DAP sourced from pooled savings [of government offices] as ‘a plan to boost disbursements’ and ‘to jump-start the implementation’ of the government’s expenditure programme,” the Ombudsman’s office said.

“Documents noted irregularities in the cross-border DAP transfer transactions to the Commission on Audit and the House of Representatives,” it said.

It cited the case involving the construction of the House of Representatives legislative library and archive building/congressional e-library.

“From the total P31.9 billion (Dh2.5 billion) DAP funds, the amount of P250 million (Dh19 million) was released to the House of Representatives” for the project.

“Field investigators noted, however, that the House or Representatives project ‘was not among those approved by the President,’” the Ombudsman said.

According to the Ombudsman, Abad could be held liable because he was the one who had prepared and signed all documents concerning DAP implementation while Relampagos was the one who had signed the corresponding special allotment release order to the audit commission and the House of Representatives.

The Ombudsman added that a special panel of lawyers had already been constituted to conduct the preliminary investigation into the matter.

Technical malversation is punishable under the country’s law especially if the offender is a public official.

The DAP had earlier been the subject of a failed attempt to impeach President Benigno Aquino III.

The bid to constitutionally unseat Aquino did not prosper because it failed to muster enough support from members of the House of Representatives.