The Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management has long been in a state of calamity, needing immediate attention and/or referral to the Board of Liquidators if only to salvage the costly or high-valued supplies, materials, and equipment dangerously stored in depots situated in areas in different regions throughout the country.

The PS, created by Letter of Instruction 755, has been an attached agency under the administrative supervision of DBM.

DBM failed miserably in this role as the following Commission on Audit findings disclose the critical state of affairs as far as financial recordkeeping and reporting of the PS are concerned.

No amount of deodorizing can salvage the image of PS-DBM. Not even the much-touted savings announced by DBM Secretary Amenah Pangandaman that under Benjamin Diokno, from 2017 to 2020, it was able to save P18 billion. That indeed deodorizes the foul smell of the missing P1 trillion, as per CoA annual audit report on DBM as of 31 December 2011, and the succeeding misuse and loss of huge amounts by the billions up to 2021, also as per CoA annual audit report, traceable to PS-DBM's technical machination that misled and confused the national leadership into believing that everything is all right under the modern techniques of electronic evaluation and summation as against the manual accounting system still being observed by the PS accounting office!

Incompatibility in systems and procedures inevitably results in chaos and catastrophe. All of these are prevalent as revealed in the CoA Annual Report as of 31 December 2011, and in the Management Letter of CoA, instead of its Annual Audit Report on the Procurement Service as at end of calendar year 2021.

Non-submission of the financial statements, trial balances, other financial reports, and supporting schedules/documents; non-submission of the comparative year-end FSs, Notes to FSs, TB, and SSs, and delayed submission of the quarterly FSs, TBs and supporting schedules/documents for calendar year 2021 disabled the performance of the necessary audit procedures to verify DBM's assertions on the FS and to render an opinion thereon.

Year-end financial statements, notes to FSs, TB, and supporting schedules/documents are all due for submission by the PS accounting unit on 14 February of the following year.

Section 12 of Presidential Decree 1445 provides that for the failure on the part of the officials concerned to submit the documents and reports mentioned herein shall automatically cause suspension of payment of their salaries until they have complied with the requirements of the Commission.

A review of the compliance by the PS with the regulations on prompt submission of the documents required for submission showed that the PS had not been keen in the observance of timeliness in the submission of its financial reports and information, as evidenced by the non-submission of the comparative year-end FSs, Notes to FS and TB for CY 2021, wherein 74 days had elapsed from the prescribed deadline until 29 April 2022.

Four follow-up letters and follow-up emails had been sent to the PS-DBM to remind the submission of the above reports to facilitate the preparation of the Annual Audit Report for CY 2021. However, the PS still did not comply with the required submission of the financial reports/statements.

(To be continued)