On 10 November 1998, the United Nations elected the Commission on Audit of the Philippines, led by then CoA Chairman Celso Gangan, to the United Nations Board of Auditors.

Winning the election on the first balloting via landslide, the Philippines garnered 117 votes of the 178 voting members or 66 percent of the total votes cast. Pakistan received 33 votes, while re-electionist India got 26.

The administration of Celso Gangan may be considered the period of reason and achievements, with high regard and respect for established traditions, and the issuance of judicious, well-thought-out and carefully crafted audit memoranda and circulars.

The issuances are worthy of respect by men in the government, private sector and the academe. Furthermore, they were and still are constitutionally sound and legal.

At no other time was there any issue of incompetence, because all of the commissioners were able to work as auditors; they observed strictly Section 126 of Presidential Decree 1445, "to respect, protect, and preserve the independence of CoA;" Section 54, "to maintain complete independence, impartiality, and objectivity… in the performance of their duties;" and to present in their audit report "factual matters accurately, completely and fairly."

It was easy for other countries to behold the spectacle of how our developing country, founded on the principles of a republican state under a democratic system of government, was being misled by an inept and overrated head of state with a dysfunctional audit commission toward the darkest side of world history.

Imagine auditing the accounts and financial operations of the Philippines under its wrong constitution!

Under the 1935 Constitution, on matters pertaining to government transactions, the supreme authority is the President. Under the 1987 Constitution, on matters pertaining to government transactions, the supreme authority is the Supreme Court.

Under Section 2, Article XI of the 1935 Constitution, "It shall be the duty of the Auditor General to bring to the attention of the proper administrative officer expenditures of funds or property which, in his opinion, are irregular, unnecessary, excessive or extravagant."

Another section of the same article of that constitution states that "the decision of the Auditor General shall be rendered within the time fixed by law, and the same may be appealed to the President whose action shall be final. When an aggrieved party is a private person or entity, an appeal from the decision of the Auditor General may be taken directly to a court of record in a manner provided by law."

Chairman Gamaliel Cordoba, has the golden opportunity to repeat the feat of then-chairman Celso Gangan of winning a seat in the United Nations Board of Auditors in splendorous New York City, in June 2024, also by a landslide, if he could keep his promise to Senator Risa Hontiveros, during her interpellation in the Commission on Appointments hearing of his interim appointment as CoA chairman.

Cordoba pledged to Senator Hontiveros to resolve the issue of the 4,000 backlogs of unacted cases within two years. And better still, he promised to the lady senator, to report to the CA, particularly her office, the progress of his effort to resolve the long pending problem of CoA.

By reason of this backlog of 4,000 unacted cases of appeals and petitions from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, plus other various other issues, his predecessor, former CoA chair, suffered the consequential bitter fate of the decade for the Commission on Audit of the Philippines.

On Friday, 1 November 2013, in New York, India won a crucial election to the United Nations Board of Auditors with its nominee Shasky Kant Sharma, the comptroller and Auditor General, garnering the largest number of votes. Sharma won 124 votes out of the total number cast in the General Assembly's Fifth Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions. India won by a comfortable margin against its closest contender, the Philippines led by CoA Chairperson Grace Pulido Tan, who got 62 votes.