CoA 2023 AAR, best ever (5)

On the day of infamy, 16 August 2013, when dark clouds were ominously hovering over the Commission on Audit (CoA) compound on Commonwealth Avenue, Chairman Grace Pulido Tan released CoA Special Audit Report 2012-13 in a press conference which radio and television broadcast worldwide, exhibiting CoA’s incompetence and unnecessarily exposing innocent Filipino lawmakers to global shame.

Shortly, when the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee opened hearings on the alleged misuse of the pork barrel, the special audit report was the main subject of discussion. The 400-page report, on which concerned citizens had pinned so much hope on finding the whole truth and bringing the wrongdoers to justice, came under fire, however.

The document contained blunders, notably the P3-billion in funds attributed by chairman Tan to ex-Compostela Valley Representative Manuel “Way Kurat” Zamora and her claim that even a non-congressman, a certain Luis Abalos, had received PDAF of P20 million.

It turned out that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) committed a major clerical error in assigning the same SARO number to Zamora’s projects and the entire set of projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways worth P3 billion. The DBM apologized to Zamora.

In the case of “Luis Abalos,” a subsequent check showed the DBM meant ex-Mandaluyong Rep. Benhur Abalos who was then the mayor before becoming a candidate for senator.

Reading from a portion of the report, Chairman Tan explained that the special audit covered only 58 percent of the total PDAF releases. It turned out to cover only the audit of the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo years while omitting the audit of the PNoy years.

Secretary De Lima and Ombudsman Morales said earlier the CoA special audit report could not be used as evidence in court, and they made it clear they were both relying on the fact-finding work of their respective agencies — evoking questions about how useful from an evidentiary point of view was the special audit report.

The chairman then of the Blue Ribbon committee, Sen. Teofisto Guingona III, seemed to be hamstrung by the fact that his panel could invariably end up investigating senators themselves.

“But his father and namesake was a former CoA head and at the very least, having drawn heavily from the latter’s experience, he may yet find his way through the labyrinthine mess and lead a restive nation to the way of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” said a keen observer.

President Marcos Sr. built a strong CoA by appointing as its head a man who possessed the same sterling qualities that he possessed.

After consulting with his official family, President Marcos Sr. appointed Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals, Francisco Tantuico Jr., as acting chairman of CoA. Tantuico was the close friend of former Leyte Governor and Ambassador to the United States Benjamin Romualdez, the father of now Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez.

Tantuico readily understood the imperative need to restore, strengthen, and preserve the integrity, objectivity, and independence of the CoA, including its representatives and personnel assigned to all government entities, to effectuate the constitutional design for a truly independent auditing arm of government.

Chairman Tantuico was elected a member of the United Nations Board of Auditors in 1984.

President Noynoy Aquino destroyed CoA by appointing two incompetent women who did not possess any sterling qualities.

Heidi Mendoza was appointed based on the recommendation of civil society groups and nuns. She was never a CoA director, never an assistant commissioner. She was appointed CoA commissioner and to the UN post through the offices of her one and only main backer, the President of the Republic of the Philippines, Noynoy Aquino.

(To be continued)