Nolasco Mempin retired January 28, 2023 as a major general in the Philippine Army. His last two assignments were interesting.
He was commander of the 10th Infantry “Agila” Division covering mostly the Davao region when Rodrigo Duterte was president. Then he was commander of the Task Force Davao guarding Davao city’s downtown area from extremist terrorists when Sara Duterte was mayor.
When he was reporting to Sara during his stint in Task Force Davao, Mempin’s marching order from the city mayor was “don’t sleep, don’t breath, don’t embarrass me.”
That exactly was how he garnered Sara’s trust and confidence. When she became vice president and secretary of education, she hired the retired military man as an official in government agency tasked with basic education. Not that Mempin had to become an educator, which he was not.
His first task was as a “highly technical consultant.” How that was so, Mempin articulated it himself: “She considered me an asset in collaborating and engaging with the security sector.” His specific task thus, in the mind of Sara, was to militarize the DepEd.
Militarizing DepEd
Among his functions were to provide high-level policy advice on agenda that were confidential in nature; engage with other government departments on security-related functions. Grilled by Rep. Gerville Luistro in the House good government committee hearing on the budget of the DepEd, Mempin first admitted but later denied that his office was part of the confidential fund benefits.
And then by a leap of trust only after a few months, Sara promoted Mempin as undersecretary for administration in April 2023. He was charged with the DepEd computerization program. For thirteen years, the computerization program was under a particular director. By way of a department order, Sara transferred that responsibility to the USec for administration. Something was afoot.
Under Mempin, there was a 0% accomplishment in the procurement of computers for fiscal year 2023. Mempin says the bottleneck was in the DepEd’s bids and awards committee. Then under Mempin, 44,638 ICT packages were procured in late 2023 but only 16,000 or 37%, not even half, were delivered. Where were the rest of the computers? Mempin mumbled blame on suppliers.
Then there were the Youth Leadership Summits for students, out of school youth, and indigenous peoples youth, the aim of which was to make them “productive citizens,” in the words of Mempin. The military and the police gave the lectures in the summit. They were conducted in Zamboanga del Sur, Lanao del Sur, Zamboanga Sibugay, Iligan city, Misamis Occidental, and Dipolog city. There were also summits in Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, Isabela, La Union and Baguio city. A total of 22 summits were held.
That is, if we believe the DepEd reports in the use of the confidential funds that they had submitted to the Commission on Audit. Field military commanders who signed certifications for COA to justify the DepEd confidential funds had admitted they were not even present in these summits.
And then one commander made a slip of the tongue: the summits were funded by a budget from the Philippine Army and from funds of participating local government units. The DepEd’s confidential funds did not fund the summits as the DepEd made COA believe, as it now makes the Filipino people believe. The military commanders admitted – they did not receive any funding from the DepEd.
What more Pandora’s boxes of corruption can we stand seeing from Sara Duterte? Where do all these explosive revelations lead to? Will they again lead to the usual route of government corruption – impunity? Until now we have not seen heads rolling.
The seminars, by the way, cost 15 million in confidential funds, reported as rewards for informers. Where did it go? Mempin says he does not know. Sara’s DepEd chief of staff Michael Poa says he does not know how the confidential funds were operationalized.
The DepEd only had confidential funds when it was under Sara Duterte. Can you imagine how she motivates subordinates to lie in her behalf for the love of confidential funds? Think for a minute and realize how abominable that is.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
