Heads should roll at the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) over a 2017 audit report which exposed shenanigans in the agency like fake farmers in four regions receiving coconut seedlings and then being paid incentives by PCA for their purported participation in coco-planting activities.

The Commission on Audit (CoA) said “in the province of Zamboanga del Sur, 755 registered participants were paid cash incentives in the total amount of P4 million for the 100,000 seedlings planted in 1,000 hectares of land without proof of land ownership.”

The fake farmers came to light in view of the fact that, according to CoA, PCA failed to identify the lands on which the coconut seedlings were supposedly planted. The whole thing stinks to high heavens with the question, “Who are pocketing the millions of pesos in incentives?”

Aside from the incentive money, what about the funding for the coconut seedlings and the fertilizers?

If there were no real farmer-beneficiaries and no lands to plant the coconut seedlings in, some people somewhere must have just laughed their way to the bank with money allocated but never used to purchase seedlings and fertilizers.

“The absence of any proof of land ownership casts doubt whether the farmer-beneficiaries are legitimate while in the agro-economic suitability assessment the expected rate of survival of the seedlings is not assured,” CoA said.

This matter deserves a full-blown investigation, more so the other issues raised by the audit agency, including rotting undistributed fertilizers and the overpriced procurement of corn seeds. Then there’s the thousands of dead and dying coconut trees planted in lands not tested for their suitability for the crop.

If corn and even cacao had been mentioned by CoA in its audit report, it’s because such crops were projected to be suitable for intercropping with coconut. The problem is that even fertilizers intended for cacao and corn had been, according to the audit, left to rot as they were exposed to elements.

What about the forged signatures of farmer-participants discovered in Calabarzon because of very glaring discrepancies in signatures of the same people?

CoA has been uncovering anomalies involving government agencies operating well below the public radar. The time has come to make people accountable by filing the appropriate criminal, civil and administrative charges.

Here, the importance of appointing an Ombudsman who will really wield the axe to chop off the corrupt in government is a must in line with President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-corruption stance.

That Labor Secretary Silvestro Bello did not make the shortlist of the Judicial Bar and Council for candidates to replace retiring Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales may well be for the good of all.

After all, the whispers coming out of the Department of Labor and Employment—millions of pesos changes hands for favorable DoLE actions—will not reflect well on one once considered for posting at the Ombudsman.

The Caesar’s wife test tells us: To people in government, it’s not enough that one is clean, but that one must also be above suspicion.

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